


Mismatched Dreams

by Little_Aliens



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Anxiety, Cats, Dreams, F/M, Friendship, Hogwarts, Insomnia, Magic, Magic-Users, Mystery, Nightmares, School, Sleep Deprivation, Slytherin Common Room, during half-blood prince, sad draco
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2019-06-28 09:22:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 27
Words: 38,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15704379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Little_Aliens/pseuds/Little_Aliens
Summary: There's a cat in the common room, one that doesn't seem to belong to anyone but everyone knows. Draco couldn't care less, the tasks assigned to him weigh down heavily and he can scarcely sleep without it plaguing his dreams. School doesn't matter anymore, not with this hanging over his head. No one understands, but he can't tell anyone. It wouldn't be so miserable if he could just rest for more than an hour at a time. All he needs is some sleep.





	1. Prologue

Barely, Draco saw the cat, out of the corner of his eyes. It had a fluffy grey coat and seemed to be following a frizzy brown-haired girl who he remembered was in the year below him. She walked into the common room and headed straight for one of the armchairs that was seated next to a couple giant windows that stared into the murky water of the lake. She slumped into the chair with a sigh before pulling some books out of her bag, all while the cat situated itself on top of the cushions to stare at the windows. He had seen the girl before, passed her in the halls and bumped into her on the way to breakfast, but it was the first time there had ever been a cat with her. 

She seemed to say something to it, and he watched as the small head turned around the room before its gaze came to a stop on him. A mismatched gaze of brown and blue stared him down for a few seconds before moving on to the next person. Finally, it settled back on the window. When he looked up again for the cat, after an hour or so, it was gone. 

There were only a couple weeks left in the school year, and for the little time that remained Draco saw a lot of that cat. Most of the Slytherin girls had petted it and grown used to seeing it in the common room or walking the halls. He’d found out the girl's name was Bridget, but had no idea what the cat was called. Two favorite spots were on top of one of the bookshelves, where it was out of reach for grabby first years, and on one of the armchairs staring into the lake. The one thing he did notice was that the cat was only ever around when Bridget was there, and only for a few hours at a time. Always gone before the students started to trickle towards their rooms and leave the common room more or less empty. 

Then school was over and all thoughts of the cat disappeared to be replaced by what was expected of him. What he had to do, the secrets he had to keep, these were at the front of his mind. Everything else fell away like paper on a windy day, whisked across the landscape with only a few of them getting stuck on fences along the way. 

He had been chosen for this, and he should feel honored that out of everyone they had picked him, yet he was scared. In class there was room for failure, for mistakes, he could always try the spell again, brew the potion once more, or wait for another quidditch match. He only had one shot at this, everything that his family had been working towards, that he, had been working towards was finally here, and he was terrified. His friends didn’t understand, perhaps his parents did a little bit which was a comfort at home, but now he was going back to school for his sixth year, and he might not return for the last. 

Days leading up to school went by so quickly he barely had time to count down and feel worried about them, although the anxiety was already building up inside. Snape knew, but that was hardly a means of reassurance when he walked the hallways alone in his thoughts or sat in class listening to things that didn’t matter. 

Small comfort came in the common room, when he could lose himself in the bustle of what everyone else was doing, and try to name as many people as he could remember from those around him. Anything to distract himself from the thoughts that swirled up inside. Though they would always come back to him at night, when the rest of the students had gone to bed and left him in the dark. 

The cat was back, he’d caught its mismatched stare a few times while looking out towards the windows, it was Bridget who was less common. Draco was sure that the fluffy grey feline belonged to her, but with her more frequent absence he wasn’t so positive anymore. Not that it really mattered, none of it really mattered anymore. 

It would be hard for him to care about anything this school year, least of all some cat that had vanished from his mind as quickly as it entered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my interpretation of what Draco was going through during his sixth year, how he might have unraveled or dealt with everything. How he got help without even noticing it. I apologize if this turns out to be out of character for him, but I needed to get this out of my head.


	2. Stupid Cat

Sleep didn’t come easy for Draco, if the bags under his eyes were any indication of how much he was getting. During class he was able to stay awake, although the constant drone of his professors was lost in a sea of rampaging thoughts that demanded his attention no matter the time of day. He’d started to have nightmares about the vanishing cabinet and people who might appear within it to tell him that he’d failed his task. He started dozing off in the common room during sundown, not that anyone ever said anything about it. 

One of the good things about being a Malfoy was that no one messed with him, yet at the same time there was never anyone to talk to. His friends had tried at first, but quickly tapered out as he began to get less sleep, conversations tired him out much faster than they used to, even with his closest mates. Then there was Potter, always around the corner from him, waiting for him to slip up and show what they had planned. Always suspicious and wanting for something to blame on him, anything that might convict him of a larger crime. 

It was exhausting, yet he couldn’t sleep. If he was really worn out it came to him, usually on the weekends when he wouldn’t be expected to show up for class or even appear at meal times. He’d spend all day in his room, mulling over things that stuck with him in class, or fixating on the noise the vanishing cabinet made whenever something appeared or disappeared. This great honor that they had bestowed upon him was slowly eating away at him little by little. 

In his great need for distraction Draco began to keep track of the cat in the common room. Lazily he watched it from what had been dubbed as Malfoy’s couch, since it was where he always placed himself, off to the side. No one else sat there, or anywhere near him, except for Crabbe and Goyle every once in a while. 

It never came in the morning, only in the time before and after supper did the fluffy grey thing wander in. Scanning the area for Bridget, or anyone else it might recognize before settling down. The new first years were used to it by now and sometimes before it could even look around for its friend someone would scoop it up. There were plenty of other cats in Hogwarts, those that belonged to students a couple from the professors, but none of them felt quite the same way this one did. If a student was sitting alone at one of the tables the cat would sit down in front of their books to keep them company for a little while. 

Yet it had never approached Draco before, perhaps one of the other kids had warned it against doing so, if it even understood them at all. It didn’t come every day, two or three times a week it stared out the windows into the lake, gaze following whatever happened to pass by in the water surrounding them. 

“Do you know whose cat that is?” He asked Goyle finally. The small question had been bothering him since Bridget seemed too busy to care for the thing. Crabbe followed his eyes as he motioned towards the cat on top of the bookshelf. 

“No idea.” He responded barely glancing at the thing. 

“One of the girls,” Crabbe offered when Draco frowned. He knew he shouldn’t have asked them, they didn’t ever seem to know much. 

Sensing his disappointment Goyle went over to a group of third years to inquire about it and returned shaking his head. He sat back down next to Crabbe and tried to get Draco to complain about some of the teachers, like they used to during free time that they should’ve been using for papers and studying. They left him a little later saying he should get some rest; his only response was a scowl. He fell asleep on the couch shortly after and found himself dreaming of the cabinet again, of people chasing him down the halls with no wand to defend himself. Draco jerked awake when he saw one of them was Voldemort, smiling widely as he cast a spell. 

The common room was empty except for another student who appeared to have fallen asleep on one of the tables in the corner opposite of him. It took him a few moments to recognize the cat sitting in front of her friend, who he could only assume was Bridget as he caught sight of the familiar frizzy hair. At the noise of him breathing heavily the feline turned towards him, its glowing eyes holding steady on his form as he pushed off the couch towards his room. 

It happened again a few days later, and he woke grabbing at his throat casting a worried glance around him. Only sighing in relief when he saw that everyone else had gone up to their own beds instead of drifting off in the common room as he had. No one knew about his nightmares, just the thought of the words coming out of his mouth made him gag. He couldn’t imagine himself ever being weak enough to admit it to anyone else, because he could barely admit it to himself. 

He’d just put his head in his hands when the cat walked into view between his legs. It trilled up at him softly and flicked its tail back and forth before laying down on his left shoe. He frowned and moved out from beneath it making the cat chirp at him again its mismatched eyes flicking away to stare at something else. 

“You’re usually gone by now,” he whispered trying to rub the sleep from his eyes. It looked back at him lazily and stretched its legs before sitting up. 

Quiet surrounded them for a few minutes. Draco had started tapping his foot against the carpet as his body tried to force him back to sleep once again. He hated how vulnerable this made him but was glad that no one was there to see it, just a stupid cat. Although there was a small part of him that wanted to smirk, because the thing had finally come over to him. 

“I can’t sleep,” he muttered. Brown and blue eyes stared at him from the ground, he was talking to a cat. He’d never admit it to anyone, but it felt good, to finally say something. “I’m so tired, and anxious,” he stumbled around his words. “The nightmares.” There was a pause and Draco growled at himself, what would his father say if he heard him confess such things? 

Perhaps this was all he would ever speak of it, he would make sure of it anyway. No one would know him as the whimpering student who was afraid of going to bed at night, he wouldn’t give them the chance to leer at him in the halls. 

He stood up abruptly and his head rushed, black dots spotting along his vision as he pushed past it in favor of heading towards his room. There would be people waiting for him in his dreams, but he was bitter at himself now that he’d confessed. He was a Malfoy, there was no way he couldn’t handle what went on in his mind. 

Another trill came from the cat as he was about to turn the corner. He glanced back in time to see that it had moved from in front of the couch where he had been and was also walking away. Back to bed, he supposed. 

“I can’t sleep, and you’re just a stupid cat.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Most of these chapters will be about thirteen hundred words. Short and sweet so I don't lose interest in this story.


	3. Friends?

Now that Draco had spoken to the cat it seemed to have taken it as an invitation to sit near him in the common room whenever it showed up for an hour or so after supper. He did find out it was a she after hearing some other kids muttering about wanting to get her, but not wishing to get too close to where he was sitting. Perhaps the cat was using him as a shield against the first years, at least that’s what it felt like anyway 

Sometimes, instead of staying cooped up beneath the lake, he would sit on the benches in the hallway. It was easier for his mates to hang out with him there, when they could distract themselves with picking on the younger kids or sneering at teachers that might walk by. It was mostly during the day, and maybe before dinner if he found a somewhat busy area to place himself. Draco would participate halfheartedly, his mind preoccupied with what would happen the following week and how he’d be able to do it. 

She walked past him a couple times, the cat did, as he was exiting the main hall after eating his fill. The first time neither one of them bothered to stop or even acknowledge each other, she was probably going to wherever her owner was. Although he was curious about which house said person was in, it wasn’t enough of an interest to follow a pet home. Just a passing thought. 

The third time this happened he was staring outside the window on one of the stone benches. Not really looking at anything in particular, but lost in thought all the same. Hogsmeade was this weekend, and though he was very anxious about the whole thing, there was another part of him that was relieved. If everything went well it would be then end of his nightmares and constant worrying about the vanishing cabinet. When his eyes started to notice that it had begun to snow he glanced around at his surroundings. Crabbe and Goyle had left him alone after class and no one else had tried to speak with him either. 

Yet there she was, sitting on the rocky armrest and gazing out at the castle grounds just as he had been. Draco scoffed softly and caught her attention, leveling him with her uneven gaze before trilling in response. He’d never paid attention to any of the animals in Hogwarts before. Classmates at his table would talk about which owls they liked the best once in a while, pointing them out as they delivered mail. Or compare pets if someone boasted that theirs was quite rare in regards to normal one's other people brought. It didn’t make sense to participate because he didn’t care about that. They were just animals for god's sake. 

Then there was this cat. He could chalk some of it up to his need for distraction, that he had even noticed anything about the grey fluff ball in the first place. 

“You following me?” He questioned with a glare. 

The other night, when he had given in and talked about his nerves and sleepiness, had drifted away from his mind, but he could not ignore the feeling of weight that had lifted after he’d said them. They had been dancing around in his head for so long that even talking to a cat had helped to calm him. Which was pretty pathetic, he had to admit that, even for himself. No one else could know, the words would never leave his mouth as long as there were other people around, but a cat wouldn’t be able to tell anyone. 

She flicked her tail around, looking back at the window instead of him. Every time he caught sight of her in the common room she was looking out into the lake and Draco wondered if her owner ever let her outside. It didn’t seem like any part of the castle was unknown to her, at least he assumed that since she’d found the Slytherin common room she also knew where the others were and how to get into them. There was a good chance that the nights she wasn’t watching for fish she was staring at the stars with the Ravenclaws, or next to the fire with the Gryffindors. With how calm she seemed, even around the younger kids, he could see them playing with her. There were bound to be some that hated her though, might even chase her down hallways with their wands raised. Not everyone liked cats. 

At the thought of her getting chased, or hissing at people Draco frowned, it bothered him a little bit and it shouldn’t. If someone killed the thing on accident he might never know, and that would be the end of it. As long as he didn’t have to see the body. 

With that thought still in his mind Draco stood abruptly and stalked off. He looked back for a second to see that the cat had left as well. Had she only stopped because he was there? 

Perhaps it was that he had spoken to her again, or that she somehow felt they were friends, because the cat started moving even closer to him in the common room and would brush against his legs if they walked past each other in the halls. Only if he was alone though, she never popped up when his friends were around. He couldn’t decide if it was just a coincidence or that she didn’t like his mates and would avoid them on purpose. 

This time she was on the couch across from him when he roused awake from dozing off. He was worried and anxious about the next day. There was a very small window where his plan could work, but he was so ready for it all to be over, to be free from worrying about every move that he made. 

“I’ll be able to sleep tomorrow,” he sighed. He’d cast his gaze across the room before speaking, to make sure there was no one else around, and there rarely was. She trilled back to him, as if it qualified as an answer. “So, you can stop following me.” 

It might not have even been doing so in the first place, but Draco felt the need to prove himself, even if it was to some silly cat. Past the sick uneasiness, that swelled at the front of his mind, there was anticipated relief. 

As if vexed by his statement she jumped off the couch and headed towards the door her tail flicking back and forth. He smirked at what looked like annoyance.


	4. Wrong Person

Sleep would not come to him that night, because the amulet never made it to who it was supposed to. Instead it had gotten one of his classmates and tortured her instead, which he hadn’t even considered might happen. It was meant for a different person! If everything had gone the way he had planned he wouldn’t be thinking about how Katie might have screamed when she touched it. Or what it looked like to be cursed. 

Rumors swirled rapidly around Hogwarts as soon as the trip to Hogsmeade concluded. He was sure that the teachers would have liked to keep it amongst themselves, but Potter and his friends were there along with Katie’s friend. Telling one person what happened was the equivalent of shouting it during breakfast or study hall. Draco’s name didn’t pop up, though he was sure it had been thrown out by at least one person with a scar on his forehead. The thought of it made him nervous all the same, because he had failed and now had to come up with something else that could work, or wait for a precious opportunity to drop in. 

Disappointment hung on him heavily as he trudged towards the Slytherin common room after supper. He’d barely eaten anything, but with his stomach tied in knots it was a wonder he had gotten food down at all. The only good thing about this whole ordeal was that it was still early in the year, they hadn’t even gone on Winter holidays yet. There was plenty of time left for him to fulfill his assignment and many ways to do it, at least he hoped there were anyway. 

He’d eaten a little later than usual, which meant the common room was somewhat busy when he got there, it also didn’t help that it was a weekend and students were still fussing about honeydukes and zonko’s. That was the chatter he had been hoping for anyway. The menial, immature talk that came from the younger kids who were easily excitable when given candy or toys. Such wasn’t the case this time around, not with what had happened to Katie, the girl from Gryffindor. 

As usual, the couch he had taken to sitting in was empty, as was the one across from it where the cat had started loitering. It was kind of silly, a little pathetic, but while he was walking back to the castle after his blunder he’d had a passing thought about the grey feline. Because he had told her that he would be able to sleep, which would now be false. Although as quickly as he had the thought, it was pushed from his mind with a frown, why should he care about what a cat thought? Perhaps it was that she was the only one he had spoken to at all about what was happening, even if vaguely. 

“Joseph from Hufflepuff said that he heard from someone in Gryffindor, who is friends with Katie’s friend that,” a second year from across the room started talking loudly. Draco did his best to seem uninterested and kept his gaze in the opposite direction but, when the boy was saying it with such a big voice, it was hard to ignore. 

“I heard she screamed so loud it could've shattered glass,” a girl interrupted him. 

“No, there was no noise coming from her,” the boy insisted. 

“That’s creepy.” A lot of the younger kids started whispering before a seventh year cut them off. Draco recognized his wild black hair and recalled his name was Trent. 

“She was cursed,” he said. 

There was no claim as to who he had heard it from, but the older boy continued with a slight air of mystery about his voice that made Draco freeze in his spot on the couch. He didn’t want to hear this, had no urge to find out what his failure had caused, yet he couldn’t leave, it would be too suspicious. As soon as Trent had started speaking all other conversation in the common room halted, and everyone's attention hung on the older boy who was grinning like a fox. 

“As soon as she touched it somethin’ pulled her up into the air and she most certainly did scream,” he said while mimicking what might have happened with her arms. “Then,” he paused. “As if the invisible monster had enough o’ her, she was thrown to the ground.” Trent finished and walked off without another word. It was typical for the seventh year who was usually the center of attention, so much so that Draco had learned to drown out his voice whenever the guy spoke. This time was different, and the voice lingered in his head as he pictured what it might have looked like in person. 

“I heard she’s going to St. Mungo’s,” the whispers started back up. 

“Isn’t that where they send the crazies?” Another speculated. 

It wasn’t supposed to have been like that, if only he had succeeded the conversation would be much different and he wouldn’t have heard it because he'd be getting much deserved rest. Instead of staring blankly into the lake like the cat always did when she was in the common room, what could he do next? 

Even though he’d been late to supper what happened to Katie had been the talk of Slytherin table, and probably whispered between friends in all the other houses as well. He knew that no one suspected him, there was no reason to, but he felt every whispered rumor of who was responsible stick to him like glue. It was happening again in here and his legs itched to run, to escape to a place no one would be talking about it. Yet Draco had to assume that everyone was discussing it, so he stayed put. 

Something soft brushed past his ankle, touching the exposed skin, and made him jerk to look towards it frantically. Failure had made him a nervous wreck and the loss of sleep proved poor for focus. 

The cat stared up at him as she walked by in favor of laying down on the couch opposite of him. After he’d watched her for a while Draco found that she hardly ever came two nights in a row, yet she was sitting there in front of him. There was no trill of greeting like she had been recently offering him, only what looked like an expectant gaze. One that she usually gave the first years when she wanted to be released from their grasp. It felt like she was checking up on him to make sure he was actually going to sleep, and perhaps she thought that he’d merely said the words in order to get her to leave him alone. 

Sighing softly Draco looked at the ground instead of her mismatched gaze, but a few seconds later she was below him. He almost growled at her, and barely resisted to urge to ask what she wanted when she sat down between his feet on the carpet. How pitiful he was, to feel like a cat cared about him more than any of his friends did. 

Without thinking much about it, Draco moved down to touch the cat, her eyes followed his fingertips until they grazed by the tops of her ears, which twitched on contact. 

“I guess I lied,” he whispered retracting his hand. A soft meow was her response to him before he looked away again. The only good thing about everyone talking at once was that no one had been watching him when he spoke to the cat. When it was quiet below him for a few minutes he glanced back down to see that she was gone, taking her scrutinizing blue and brown gaze with her.


	5. Closer

Katie’s encounter with the amulet was the topic around school for three or four days after it happened, and Draco couldn’t sleep for more than an hour without getting nightmares about it. Even though he wasn’t there and had tried to ignore all speculation about what she might have gone through it found its way into his thoughts. Sometimes the dream had the slip on him, and instead of the Gryffindor girl hanging in the air it was him, with Potter and his gang laughing beneath him as he shouted in pain. Or there was Voldemort breaking through windows, while Draco was alone in the hallway, and yelling about his failure. 

The sleep was tormented and had him jerking awake after hearing Avada Kedavra or getting slammed into the ground but he needed it. Fitful sleeping hardly felt like the rest that he craved but it helped to keep him awake in class which made the professors stop nagging him to take care of himself. He’d gotten used to their dismissal of what was going on with him and pretty much ignored everything that happened regardless of what it was. 

A week went by before he saw the cat again, and when she finally appeared there was what looked like a scarf around her neck that had a purple tag on it. Probably her owner was tired of not knowing where she was or something. There was more than likely some sort of spell connected to cloth that would point the person in the right direction, though they might not be able to get into Slytherin common room. He could see them standing outside slightly confused and then turning away with a sigh. The thought had Draco trying to imagine what the cat's owner could possibly look like and if they were aware that she knew, most likely, half of the students in Hogwarts by now. 

If the attempt at a collar was anything to go by they at least wanted other people to know that there was someone taking care of her that had tied such a thing around her neck. That could mean that they had tried to keep her in their common room, but she was always escaping. Which explained why she had been gone for a week. It made him smirk a little, to think that she was disobeying someone in order to sit across from him on the couch and stare into the lake for a couple hours every other day. 

During the time that students were still talking about Katie, Draco had taken to going to his room, after an hour on the couch. Perhaps he’d gotten used to waiting for the cat to show up and was unconsciously on the lookout for the grey feline, though he chalked it up to wanting to look normal. Since the topic had since died down he was back on the couch again, thumbing through books he wasn’t going to read and trying to look occupied so now one would talk to him. 

Then she was walking past him, with a small trill as a greeting before jumping onto his couch and settling on the opposite armrest. He almost scoffed and had to hold himself back from making a comment about how close she was getting to him. It wasn’t nearly as loud as it had been the previous time he’d said something to her, so she’d have to wait until everyone, or at least the majority of people, were gone. Which didn’t take too much longer because students always went to bed earlier when they had school the next morning. 

Draco had also gotten really good at looking like he was doing school work while listening to everything else that was going on. At first, he just sat on the couch and stared off into space, but Pansy had mentioned he looked a little strange and decided to change it up. When there were only a couple kids left in the room, and far away from him did he speak to her. 

“Your owner must be jealous,” he muttered closing his book. He wasn’t even sure what the title of it was, or what class it was for. She gave a soft meow in response and flicked her tail a couple times, glancing around the room just as he had done. He caught sight of the circular medallion, that’s what it looked like anyway, that was hanging off of the scarf around her neck. “Does that have your name on it though?” 

He wondered about it every so often because a name might at least give away what house her owner was in. If it was something silly or food related it was probably a Hufflepuff, something creative or strange would be Ravenclaw, and anything else would be Gryffindor. He could rule out Slytherin, because no one in the common room had ever laid claim to her. 

For a second, he tried to convince himself he didn’t care, part of him still wanted to ignore the cat, but it was a very small part of him. The rest reached over to the purple tag and flipped it over in his hands, but it was blank on both sides. He rolled it between his fingers a couple time to make sure he hadn’t missed anything and he hadn’t, it was just blank. 

“Useless,” he sighed. She trilled at him as if she was perfectly aware how futile the attempts of her owner were. He was actually a little surprised that she hadn’t just taken off the collar to begin with, he’d seen other cats do it when people tried to put them on. It was possible that the cat knew that if she took that one off another would descend in its place, but he was probably giving her too much credit. Cats were clever, but were they to this level? Probably not. 

She pushed her cheek into his hand when he wasn’t paying attention and made him realize that this was the closest he had ever willingly gotten to the cat. He left it there for a few more seconds before pulling back, he’d often remembered her as the fluffy feline, but had never been expecting to actually touch her. Whoever owned her, he might never know, but they at least took good care of her because she was very soft. 

Her gaze was curious on him as he leaned back into the couch once again, his thoughts suddenly turning towards the nightmares that had plagued him the night before. They only popped up because he had started to get sluggish and knew that he wouldn’t be able to keep himself up much longer. 

Then he was awake, blinking his eyes lazily as if he had just dozed off for a few seconds, except that it was dark. All the students that had been in the common room previously were gone, and though the cat was still there, she was sleeping. It was the first time he’d ever seen her sleeping, every time he looked at her she was always focused on something in the room, or staring out into the lake. He felt rested, for the first time in weeks and, for a moment, couldn’t believe it. 

No nightmares had plagued him while he was out, it was dark and instant, the time that had passed. Although he still wasn’t sure how long. Everything else was quite forgotten as he moved towards his room, still not really processing that he had slept without disturbance. Perhaps he was in a dream right now, one where he believed that he had finally gotten rest. Wouldn’t that be something? 

It’d been four hours that he slept, and though there were still a few hours left until the rest of the castle woke up he was wide awake. But this time he didn’t mind, because there had been nothing and he was choking on his excitement over the dreamless sleep he’d forgotten existed. 

He felt anxious now, thrumming with energy, even though it’d only been a short amount of time. Maybe he only got real sleep after he’d completely exhausted his body, which was a scary thought. But if it meant there was a lapse of escape, he’d gladly do it again.


	6. Mystery

After that first night of sleep the times it repeated were random, and he could never figure out what he was doing differently the days he did get rest compared to the ones he didn’t. He didn’t mind too much, because it’d been such a horror in the past few months that he was grateful for anything he could get. In fact, part of him was convinced that it would be short lived, or some sort of fluke that would straighten itself out in the next few days and return him back to the world of endless nightmares. Class wasn’t as mind numbing now that he could actually focus on what the professors were saying, although it still wasn’t all that exciting. 

Supper hadn’t been that much of a draw to him recently, all he could think about was how exhausted every little thing made him. Usually it was a good time to talk to friends or catch up on assignments one might have missed or ignored on purpose. Yet all the noise had given him a headache every once in a while, and he couldn't stand everyone trying to tell him what he needed to do in order to get better rest. It was easier to show up near the end of the meal, when most students had tired of conversation, or very early, before the chatty ones had arrived. He’d even figured out who talked the most and which students were the slowest, though it was usually because they had brought classwork to the table. 

He had more of an appetite now that there was some proper rest going through his veins and had figured he might enjoy talking with his mates like he used to. But after a couple nights sitting in the middle of the group found he wasn’t too fond of the topics discussed, as they no longer had any relevance to him. He didn’t care about school this year at all, or which professors may or may not have a grudge against Slytherin. It was kind of silly, that he had gotten used so used to the quiet hall that he missed it amongst the loud musing of his fellow classmates. 

If there was anything at all he was curious about, it was the coming and going of dreamless sleep that sometimes found him in the small hours of darkness before midnight. At first, he had assumed it would come when his body was exhausted and simply gave way to unconsciousness as he sometimes felt that he was on the edge of passing out. Then it had found him again a couple nights later and that theory was out the door. 

Nothing about what happened during the day was irregular, nor was there anyone new who had started hanging out with him. Plus, he hadn’t told anyone about his plight besides the cat, and she still popped up around the same times that she always did which meant that there was no change in anything and he was back at square one. Marveling at the sleep he got whenever he woke to realize that darkness had welcomed him with emptiness and rest. 

It was a great mystery that he hoped would soon reveal itself to him, the only other thing he ever wondered about was what the cat’s name was and who she belonged to. But those were far off in his mind as he continued threading through past events in his days, trying to find the little thing that might have triggered his recent gift. 

What he had realized, thus far, was that he always got it in the common room after everyone else had gone to bed. It was somehow convenient for him, because it meant that other students would never see him in the vulnerable state of exhaustion that he had been hiding so carefully. It also didn’t happen on days when his mates came to sit around him on the couch. A small part of him was starting to get annoyed with them for keeping him from sleep, even though he wasn’t sure they even played a factor in whether or not he got it. Maybe his mind was too riled up with what he could and couldn’t say to them that it never calmed down enough to fall asleep like he could on other days. 

The questions consumed him so much that he forgot about the Quidditch game with Gryffindor until the day of, and even then, with everything else going on, he didn’t care for it. When they lost, and Draco was quiet, a couple of the upperclassmen got upset with him but he didn’t mind that either. Nightmares had plagued him the night before, and perhaps now that he was finally sleeping, they were getting stronger. At one-point someone in his dreams started choking him, and he woke up gasping and clawing at his neck, terrified at what would happen if they succeeded. 

Sleep had distracted him for a while, but still his job hung above him heavily, bearing down with just enough weight to make it hard to breathe when he thought about the consequences that would come with failure. He was wandering the halls when they walked past each other, her brown and blue gaze made him stop short of his lonely trek. Faintly, he could hear the Gryffindors celebrating their victory, which would have made him scowl and sneer in the past, but only gained a frown today. 

“And where are you going?” He asked knowing there wouldn’t be a decipherable answer. 

She trilled at him in response, a sound that he had grown so used to whenever they met he barely had to look up to know it was her. Since he had first spoken to her, what seemed like so long ago, she had been getting closer and closer to him on the couch, and now almost sat right next to him. Sometimes he’d poke at her paws until she tucked them closer to her body and cast a slight glare in his direction. As if he was trying to keep a small distance between them, to tell her that if she got any closer he might bother her more until she got the hint. He’d only pet her a few more times, though she was always brushing by his ankles anyway. 

“Somewhere quiet?” He muttered. That was what he was trying to find anyway. The common room was noisy with complaints about the game and what calls they thought were unfair, and the halls were also full of soft chatter. 

Gone were the days that he was sitting in the middle of the group, sharing theories about how Potter had won all the professor's pity with his sob story, or the times Draco had laughed about the other houses. Him and his mates used to bet on which kids would get failing grades, and swap stories about trips to Hogsmeade or rumors they’d heard. Now he was walking the halls of the castle alone, speaking truth to a cat and lying to everyone else. Thinking of what could be done with his task, what would be the best way to make it happen, and wondering if he would be able to do it. 

A soft meow and she was brushing past him, her tail wrapping around his ankle as she passed, going in the opposite direction he was headed. He watched her walk for a few seconds before she stopped and looked back at him, as if she was expecting him to do something. When he did nothing she trilled and cocked her head at him, taking a few more steps before turning towards him again. 

This time he got the hint and followed, curious where she might be leading him until he recognized the way towards the astronomy tower. It had started to snow earlier, and the tower would most likely be vacant of anyone wanting to talk, perhaps the cat knew this, or was hoping it to be so. Cold air bit at him as he walked towards the railing, the feline had already situated herself near the edge and was trying to push the snow out of the way with her little paws. 

He put his hands of the metal regardless of the white iciness and shivered as a small breeze moved through his clothes. It wasn’t so much that he had to go inside, but just enough to keep others away and prick at his fingertips with a slight numbing cold. Perhaps if he had better clothes on it would be more bearable but he liked the cold, because it was something else to think about. 

Always his mind was screaming at him about being exhausted, or of the dreams he feared at night, or what was still to come. At times it felt like too much to bear, yet he could never escape from it as long as he was still here, until the year was over and his job done. But now it was cold, and it had started to sink into his skin. He could think of little else, which made him sigh in relief because it was easy to solve, all he had to do was go inside. The other voices in his head were gone and replaced with the need for warmth. 

“My fingers are going numb,” he whispered. She trilled softly below him and he glanced down to see that she was gazing off into the distance, at the dark landscape around them. He wondered faintly what she could be looking at and tried to find it in the shadows.


	7. Jealous?

The apple had disappeared and reappeared as it was supposed to, and Draco was still getting sleep on random days during the week. That night in the tower, with the cat, fluttered into his thoughts occasionally, almost making him shiver at the memory of how cold it had been. He’d gone inside after his ears began to ache from the freezing breeze, leaving the grey feline to stare off into the distance. Since then he’d taken a couple walks outside during the day and tried to focus on the crunch of snow, or wisps of wind as he did so. It was somewhat silly to him, that he had to go to such lengths in order to shut up the voices inside of him. At the same time, he was at least grateful for the fact that it was so simple to do so. His toes would start to go numb, but at least he wasn’t thinking about the nightmare from early that morning, or racking his brain trying to figure out any sort of clue as to why he was sleeping sometimes. 

There was still that mystery, of why and how he was getting rest. The only thing he knew for certain was that it only came to him in the common room after everyone else had gone upstairs. Another factor that played into it, which he had realized before, was it never happened on days when his mates hung out with him until late. It was a little hard for him to want to ignore them so blatantly, because as he got more sleep there was more energy for him to do things. Although he didn’t much care for school related things, it had helped him look forward to going to Hogsmeade on the weekends, or at least pretend to listen during supper. He could risk not having any rest to appear somewhat normal to his classmates, it helped keep their questions at bay at least. 

If anything, Draco was at least excited to be going home soon during the winter holiday, if he would be able to sleep anywhere, it’d be in his own bed. He also wouldn’t have to resort to talking to a when everything became too much for him. His parents knew what was going on with him and wouldn’t press him with that many questions, at least he hoped. This was still a couple weeks away, but he was anxious to return nonetheless. 

It’d been a while since the cat hadn’t gone straight to the couches he was situated on, he figured she had tired of the grabby hands of the first and second years and graduated to his more mature presence. But Bridget was sitting in one of the large armchairs in front of the windows and the grey feline was on her lap. Making him realize that it had been a long time since he’d seen the girl, and that she was the one who he had first seen the cat with. Though he had found out that she did not belong to anyone in Slytherin house, so as to who her owner could be, it was still a mystery. 

He should’ve been okay with it, and understood that they were friends first, before the cat even considered going near him, but he was irritated instead. It made sense that the feline would probably rather sit on someone's lap than next to a person on the couch. Bridget probably pet her a lot more than he ever attempted to as well, he really didn’t have much in the way of a lure to get her over to him. He hated that it bothered him, because she was just a cat, but he’d gotten used to having her near him. Perhaps it made him feel less alone, since he’d told her a little about his woes. He was positive the cat didn’t understand, but it felt good to get it off his chest. 

Sleep didn’t come that night, and neither did the cat. Every ten minutes, or so, he’d glance over at the pair and see what was happening, but mostly it was Bridget talking softly to the feline and patting her head. Maybe if he did that the cat would want to be next to him all the time. 

Bridget wasn’t in the common room the next night and when a fluffy grey blob started moving towards him he almost laughed at how much relief he felt. Seeing her with the other Slytherin girl made him feel isolated, and angry that he even felt that way at all, but now that the cat was back he needn’t worry. He’d gotten used to the purple collar over the past weeks and thought it looked good peeking out of her fur in random spots. 

“If I pet you, will you choose me instead?” He asked softly. There weren’t too many people around him at the moment, and plenty of other students talked to the cat like it was a person anyway, it wasn’t that strange. 

She had situated herself close enough to nearly touch him, but had learned not to venture any farther, less he pokes at her paws until she was annoyed. At his question she trilled and looked over at him, brown and blue eyes staring curiously at his face, as if she was questioning whether or not he would be able to do such a thing. It was the same expression she offered anything that swam by in the windows, like she knew what she was watching was out of her reach and impossible to grab. 

Draco didn’t like the silent judgement she placed on him, if that was even what she was doing at all, and reached out to touch her. His fingers bushed against the tops of her ears like he had done all those nights ago, before coming down gently on her small head. It wasn’t often that he pet animals, so there was a small bit of worry that he might do it wrong and make the cat sit farther away from him. She made no move to escape from him and even purred for a second before he pulled back. 

“I wasn’t lonely,” he hissed out suddenly. Realizing that the question had made him sound vulnerable because of a cat who decided to sit with someone else for a day. She merely meowed at him softly, not at all bothered but his change in attitude. Maybe it was something she had grown used to thanks to her owner. 

That night granted him sleep and he woke with the question of why. Asking it again when it didn’t come the following night. After that, there was the cat in the common room the next evening, and Draco checked to make sure Bridget wasn’t there to catch her attention. 

The feline came to a stop a little bit closer than previously, but not enough that they were touching, and offered him a trill as a greeting. In response he scratched her head for a moment, which she leaned into, and pulled away just as quick. He hated to admit it, but he’d become a little attached to her, as if they were somehow friends even though they didn’t speak the same language. 

He’d never admit this to anyone else, if someone questioned him he wouldn’t even mention the cat, but in his head was fine. She was usually the one with him on the nights he actually fell asleep. He almost scoffed at the thought of her guarding him from bad dreams. 

No nightmares plagued him, and he woke blissfully empty and rested, save for one thought in his head, one difference between the times where he slept and the ones he didn’t. It was like a switch had gone off in his mind as soon as he admitted to himself that the cat mattered, that he noticed when she was gone. 

Sleep only came when the cat was sitting next to him.


	8. A Fight

He paid close attention over the next week to confirm it, making sure to take note of what happened the days he didn’t get sleep. Draco recalled that the cat didn’t seem to like his friends much, because when he was with them she never showed up, or would pass him by in the halls without so much as a trill. It made sense why he never got any rest when his friends were around him, because he never saw those mismatched eyes. When she was there, glancing lazily around the common room at new noises or flashes of movement, he was consumed by blissful darkness. Most of the time waking to a deserted space void of anything but misplaced textbooks. Rarely was the cat there when he roused, yet he remembered her blue and brown gaze looking his way before he lost time. 

It didn’t make any sense, because he’d been seeing the cat all around Hogwarts since the beginning of the school year, and even the one before. There had been no change in her behavior, save for the fact that she was getting closer to him, but nothing that would help him sleep. He was definitely more suspicious of the feline now, but all the same thankful for the rest that was given to him. Perhaps the cat was a special breed that he had never heard of before, although the thought of a cat that helped people sleep was a bit ridiculous. There could be something about her that was enchanted, a spell that had been cast maybe?

If anything, it made him all the more curious about who the owner was, and now there was a certain urgency behind the question. Did the person know what was going on? Or was the grey furball completely on its own when it came to exploring the castle? There was a good chance, whoever the master was, had no idea about the places she went or the people she hung out with. What if they were a Gryffindor? Would they even want to talk to him at all, or slam the door in his face? They could very easily be one of Potter’s friends and not even offer him the time of day thanks to all the poison that came out of the other boy’s mouth.

The difficulty with asking about the grey feline was that she seemed to be rather well known to students and professors alike, he figured she knew the way into all the common rooms, or at least had human friends who opened the door for her. It’d be hard to figure out which one she actually belonged to, and even harder to determine which person was her owner, with all the people who leaned down to pet her it was almost impossible to tell.

She wasn’t easy to follow, half the time she’d turn around and trill at him before he even had a chance to hide or present himself in a way that made it less obvious what he was doing. The good thing was that she didn’t seem to understand what he was going on, and had instead showed him a couple more isolated spots around the castle for him to be alone. He thought about asking his mates to keep an eye out for her, but didn’t want to explain what it was for, as they would undoubtedly question him.

After two and a half unsuccessful weeks of walking slowly after a cat Draco couple help but feel frustrated, he was still getting sleep whenever she showed up, but the mystery as to why lingered in his mind like heavy weight. When he woke from his empty nights it hung in the back of his throat, as if he was choking on it.

“You know too many people,” he told her one night. She was leaning against his thighs just barely, only recently had she been allowed to sit right next to him, and looked up after his comment. He didn’t really mind her being right next to him, although some of her fur stuck a little.

A trill was his response, as usual, and merely reminded him of all the students who recognized her immediately and bent down to pet her. The upperclassmen and professors would smile at her fondly when they crossed paths, or sit down next to her on the stone benches in the halls. Looking as if they were old friends, and making Draco frown, because any one of them could have easily been her owner. But he wasn’t about to go up to every person who knew the cat and ask what the relation might be. That would take ages. Especially with all the younger kids who lit up at the sight of her, and could be seen chasing her down the halls every once in a while.

He’d hoped that she would look more comfortable with the right student, that a change in her eyes might reveal who she really cared about, but he couldn’t pinpoint any drastic changes.

Asking Bridget was the simple solution, yet he hadn’t seen the younger girl since she and the cat had been together in the armchair all those nights ago. Who was the say she even knew the right answer anyway? Some of her classmates told him that she was usually in the library when she wasn’t in her room, but he hadn’t been able to find her there, and instead heard the familiar voice of Potter mooning over who to take to the potions party.

What followed afterwards was a pure chance encounter, and made Draco realize bitterly that had he not heard Potter and left, at that exact moment, he would’ve missed it altogether. It happened in front of him in one of the halls, he’d just turned the corner to see Bridget walk up to a guy sitting on one of the benches. She looked a little desperate, and more harrowed than before.

As Draco got closer he tried not to look as though he was listening or trying to figure out what was going on, but noticed that the boy was from Ravenclaw. He was offering the Slytherin girl a wearisome expression, as if he had heard this all before and did not care for a repeat.

“You know as well as I do that she does whatever she wants,” he sighed. The other student leveled Bridget with a tired stare, his half-lidded eyes glancing towards Draco for a second before going back to the girl in front of him. “She’s always been like that.”

“But she listens to you,” she insisted.

“Barely,” the boy laughed.

Draco was passing them now, their comments were clear and easy to understand because of how close they were, and he was thankful Bridget didn’t seem to care who heard. Though she probably hadn’t even glanced to see who was walking past.

“The next time you see her, pick her up,” she hissed. “Tell her to stop waiting for me in the common room.”

Draco was almost out of hearing range when the Ravenclaw student spoke again, his voice just loud enough for him to hear.

“She’s worried about you Bridget.”

“I don’t care,” she snapped back. Then she was stomping off down the hall, her pace quick from what Draco could tell of the footfalls that echoed in the other direction. He turned the corner and continued on his way back to the common room, wondering what the blip of conversation revealed. Which wasn’t much. People fought in the castle all the time, mostly with words, sometimes with magic.

Really, it just sounded like one of Bridget’s friends was annoying her, or perhaps rubbed her the wrong way and was trying to make up for it. She obviously wanted none of it, and had even gone as far as seeking out someone else to set things straight. 

He was curious about what had happened to get her so angry, but lost interest almost immediately when he saw the cat glance at him for a second before dashing off in a random direction. For now, chasing the grey feline was his best option until he found out more.


	9. Answer

What he found out, after a while, was that out of all the four houses it was the Ravenclaws that seemed to know her best. At least he noticed that there were fifty percent more of them that stopped to pet her than any of the others. Hufflepuff, Slytherin, and Gryffindor students still noticed or tried to smile at the cat, but for the most part it was always the blue tie group that stooped down to say hello. He also noticed that the grey feline was more inclined to rub against their legs when they passed in the halls, or sit next to them outside. He really should have realized it sooner, but with his mind so preoccupied on other, more pressing matters, it’d slipped past his eyes like a breeze. It was hard not to notice, now that he’d seen it, the color of their robes was so blaringly obvious Draco chided himself on missing something so simple. 

There was also a chance that all this meant was that she liked their common room the best, but he was banking on the fact that her owner was there, because she had to belong to someone. Even if it was one of the professors, someone had to be taking care of her, otherwise he would’ve noticed her sooner than just this school year. The only new teacher this year was for potions, and with all the pictures of students and other things in his room Draco was sure to have seen the cat somewhere among them. Or the older man would have at some point mentioned her, as he turned out to be quite the chatter box on certain days. 

A week was all that remained of school before the winter holidays, he was hoping to figure it out before he went home. That way when he got back, and sleep would be uncertain again, he would be able to easily ask the owner what the cat might be capable of. If anything, they might know what their pet had been up to and be able to pinpoint some differences, or help him out in some way. Although, even that sounded desperate, and there was still a question of whether or not the person would even want to talk to him at all. His reputation at school wasn’t the best, but he could maybe use it to scare some of the younger kids with threats of his father. Hopefully, he wouldn’t have to even mention it. 

This is what had him sticking close to the Ravenclaws when he saw the boy that Bridget had been talking to the other night. He had golden brown skin, short black hair, and was perhaps the same height as Draco was, though he wasn’t sure as they had yet to pass each other while the other guy was standing. He was in the library, sitting near some of the kids, when the dark-skinned boy walked by holding was could only be the cat in question. She looked comfortable in his arms, or at least used to who was carrying her, because she wasn’t struggling or trying to get away at all. 

In fact, she seemed more subdued than normal, as if she was disappointed to have been caught by someone she knew. It had been somewhat of a surprise for Draco, to see her in a person's arms so easily, and made him realize that he’d only ever seen a few people pick her up at all. Even then, only one willingly. She tolerated it when they scooped her up from behind or grabbed at her before she could run off, although after a minute or so she was scrambling to be released. Bridget was the one person he had seen pick her up without worry, the cat had even sat patiently, as if she was waiting for it to happen. 

The next day Draco found out that they were the same height when he was on his way back to the common room and almost bumped shoulders with the boy. He had the grey feline under one of his arms and once again she looked disappointed, yet made no move to escape as she more than likely wanted to. Why a Ravenclaw was all the way down near the Slytherin house would have been a mystery had he not caught a slip of a comment. 

“Doesn’t want to see you,” the other boy had said while passing Draco. 

It brought him back to what Bridget had said to him in the hall, and like a puzzle, the pieces of conversations fell together in his mind. The grey feline was always in the common room because she was waiting for the girl. It explained why she completely ignored him when finally, she showed up and let the cat sit on her lap. Why she hated the feline was a mystery, but at least some of what had been said made sense. The guy was doing just as Bridget had requested him to do, pick up the cat whenever they crossed paths. When Draco had assumed they were talking about another student the comment had him confused, but now it made sense, kind of. 

The next day he found out his name was Wyndham after asking around that morning during breakfast. Apparently, he used to be on the Quidditch team and was a very accomplished beater for the two years he participated. Draco’s mates that were still playing had been very relieved when he decided not to try out that year, as he had a wicked habit of nailing them directly in the face. Which meant that there was a good chance Draco had played games with Wyndham in the past but never bothered to connect name to face. 

Somehow it felt like it was easier to follow him once Draco knew his name, and if he got caught he could say that he had a question for the kid about Quidditch and why he quit. Pretty much anyone in the school would be okay with an answer like that, except for Wyndham perhaps. The cat was in his arms again when Draco saw him and waited only seconds before turning around and following them. 

He hadn’t a good night's rest in three days thanks to the Ravenclaw boy picking up the cat anytime they crossed paths. She’d stopped popping up in the common room, and he rarely saw her in the halls, as if she knew that her owner was on the lookout for her. There was a good chance she was only going to the more isolated spots, where she was sure he wouldn’t know to check. 

As he followed them further into the castle the number of blue neck ties began to increase and he started to get looks from the students. It made him nervous to be so obviously out of place and he was almost relieved when Wyndham suddenly turned around to face him with a cold stare. 

“What do you want Malfoy?” He asked without hesitation. 

The confrontation did not go unnoticed by those around them, but one glare from Draco had them scampering away. He was a little surprised when Wyndham called out his name so easily, and could only imagine what the other boy must be thinking. Draco had been hoping he could use some of his scare factor on the guy, but it certainly wasn’t going to work on him. Not with the bland expression that the darker skinned boy was leveling him with anyway, it made Draco irritated to see that he was so defiant. 

“Is that your cat?” Draco tried not to sneer at him. He was wishing it wasn’t, because as it looked now, he wouldn’t get any help from the guy in front of him even if he offered to pay him for it. Not with the bland expression he was currently offering. 

“No.” 

He almost sighed in relief but had to suppress a huff at the short reply that was given. The grey feline in his arms shifted and had begun to squirm, but that only made Wyndham change how he was holding her until it was more secure again. 

“Do you know who she belongs to?” He pushed, thinking that maybe the boy would tire of the questions and answer them in order to get Draco to walk away from him. The grey feline had started to struggle again and he had the urge to free her from the guys grasp. 

“It’s really none of your business, but,” Wyndham started. Making Draco almost snap at him about being older, before he answered. “Vera owns the cat.” 

With that said he turned around and continued on his way, and since their conversation was over Draco made no move to follow him. He’d gotten what he wanted after all. The one thing that had always been bugging him about the cat, now he knew, and yet. Who was Vera?


	10. Not a Good Holiday

In the few days that remained before the winter holidays Draco had been on the lookout for information about Vera, whom he knew next to nothing about. The only thing he’d guessed was correct, was that she was in Ravenclaw, and even then, it was only because Wyndham had been taking the cat there so he just assumed. Obviously, his mates knew nothing about the girl, and even seemed curious why he was asking about someone whom they had never met or heard before. He’d tried to talk to the dark-skinned boy again but the younger guy merely ignored him, and didn’t even spare a glance in his direction. Each day that passed had him feeling anxious and curious about who this girl might be and going home to finally get some much-needed rest. He hadn’t gotten more than six hours of deep sleep in the past week, anything else had been spotty and fitful, as the cat was nowhere to be found. 

Which meant that Wyndham was doing a good job, or finally Vera had cracked down on her cat after her friend mentioned his name to her. Either way he had seen nothing of the grey feline in a good while, and now knew for sure that it was she who was the source of his relaxation. For he had gotten none of it in her absence. 

The last night before he left Draco went over to a group of Ravenclaws at supper and questioned them about a girl named Vera. None of them had ever spoken to her, said she liked to keep to herself, and mentioned that she was almost never around in the evening. When he pushed further one of the girls muttered something about Madam Pomfrey, but would not repeat the information. They didn’t have anything else for him after that, wouldn’t even give him a description of what Vera looked like, probably thought of him somewhat suspiciously at that point. 

On the train to get back home he thought about what he could do when he returned to Hogwarts. Wyndham was the only one, whom Draco knew, who was closely involved with the cat and with Vera, at least he figured. Yet, he had a feeling the dark-skinned boy wouldn’t want anything to do with him, not with the way they had spoken to each other that night. He could ask the Ravenclaw Prefects about her and say that she had something he needed, which was party true, because she had the cat. The grey feline certainly wasn’t his, but he didn’t have to tell them what it was that she had. If anything, Draco had the benefit of the two students knowing him from previous meeting he had attended with them, they would know that he meant business. 

As they got closer and closer to the station thoughts of Vera and the cat slowly fell away from his mind as he imagined what it would feel like to finally sleep in. He wouldn’t have to worry about how normal he looked to his friends, or how he had to behave in front of other students. Finally, he would be able to get some rest. 

Yet, even that had been too much to ask for. At home there were questions, poking and prodding at him about what he was going to do next, and why the other plan had failed. What he had done wrong, and how it could’ve worked out if it had been performed by someone else. Sleep was still riddled with nightmares; the only difference was that he could wander the halls of the mansion instead of spending all night in the common room. The faces of those around him were familiar, and he didn’t have to pretend to not be tired, or that he was okay, but that was of little comfort. Here, because of what they knew, his parents felt that they could help him. 

They meant well, Draco knew that all they wanted was for this to be over and done with as well, but it felt like he was suffocating. Most nights he woke pulling at his sheets after he’d dreamed about them wrapped around his neck. It had been better at school, and he cursed himself for thinking so, when he was suffering but didn’t show it. None of the students ever asked him if he was okay, they didn’t drill him with ideas and let him know how important everything was. Everyone was blissfully unaware of what was happening, and they ignored him for the most part. Draco thought he hated it, loathed the part of him that wished they would turn and see him frowning and cower away, or challenge him. 

Now he wanted to go back, and wished that he’d stayed at school over the break. Perhaps the lack of people in the castle would’ve allowed him some much needed quiet. He’d been expecting to get it at home, but he should’ve known better. 

The days started to drag after the first week, and had Draco avoiding his parents and relatives as much as possible. His mother was the most persistent of anyone, and though Draco knew that she was scared for him, he’d started to dread their conversations. She was just worried, and he could understand that, because he felt the same way, but one of them doing it was enough. At one point he’d dreamt of being back in the common room, with the cat sitting next to him, and the amount of relief that flooded him was laughable. It made him feel like crying almost, because by the time he woke up and realized it’d all been fake he remembered that the cat was gone last he checked. 

Even the trembling friendship he had made with the feline was lost now that Wyndham was grabbing her whenever they crossed paths. Draco tried to hate him, to despise the younger student, but found that even the thought of fighting over an animal was embarrassing. He’d have to do something else to get his attention, to get Vera’s attention, whoever she was. 

On the train ride back to Hogwarts he felt even worse than when he’d left and could tell his friends had noticed because Goyle almost said something about it but stopped himself short. Draco probably looked awful, but didn’t quite care anymore, he had a plan now. First thing he would do was go to the Prefects and question them about the mystery girl, threaten them if he had to. Sleep loss had made him desperate for rest, and by now he knew that the only way to get it at school or at all, was with the help of a blue and brown eyed cat.


	11. The Twins

The day after they got back Draco had been on his way to talk to the Ravenclaw Prefects, he knew exactly where they were going to be after asking around at supper. Then he saw the cat walk by at the end of the hallway, and it’d been so long since he’d seen the grey feline that he stopped himself short for a moment. It took him a few seconds to realize that Wyndham was not walking behind her, nor did he seem to be anywhere in the area, he’d last seen him at a table talking to a couple Hufflepuffs. It looked like the cat was going to the Astronomy Tower, but with how many places she knew in the castle he couldn’t take the chance and sprinted after her down the hall. 

He probably looked silly, to be running after a cat, but he couldn’t bring himself to care with the lure of sleep so close to his fingertips. Just as she turned to look up at him Draco had his arm under her belly and hoisted her into the air before pulling the feline to his chest. She struggled for a few seconds while he tried to figure out a better way to hold her and found a stone bench around the corner with no one around. She looked up at him when he sat down with her, her eyes opened wide and curious as they stared at each other, they’d never been this close before, and he’d never picked her up. Attempts to escape renewed and he remembered that only people in Ravenclaw had ever carried her, she was probably uncomfortable with what was happening, but he didn’t even consider letting her go. 

His mind was going crazy as he fought to keep the cat contained, if it had been someone else struggling to hold her he would’ve laughed but all he did was growl as her claws caught any skin that was exposed. When they sunk in a little deeper he lost his grip enough for her to jump away on the ground and glare at him, making him swear and check his wrist for blood. There were a couple beads of red that seeped from him, but his gaze moved slowly upwards, expecting to see the cat running off, yet she was standing there in front of him. Ears turned back slightly she hissed at him softly, it was the first time he’d heard her make the noise, even with the first years she’d never done it. 

Seeing her away from him, looking so defensive and distant made him sigh and his face fell in disappointment. If he had had any chance of the cat coming back to him before, it was gone now, she’d more than likely avoid him in the halls as well. 

“I know,” he whispered and she stopped hissing at him. “I shouldn’t have grabbed you like that.” 

There was no noise that came in response but the cat sat down instead of standing, Draco hoped he could take that as a sign that she wasn’t going to sprint off in the next few seconds. Then again, what did he know about cats, he couldn’t even pick one up right. 

“I thought,” he started and almost laughed. Somehow, he was always telling this cat what was wrong with him, as if they were friends or she belonged to him. “That I would be able to rest at home, but I couldn’t.” He sagged against the windows behind him and longed for the days that she would jump next to him and stare out into the courtyard below, these moments stretched out of his reach. 

There was a soft sound that might have been a trill that came from her direction, but Draco didn’t open his eyes to see what she was doing. He wanted to chuckle at himself again, because he should’ve imagined the days when he was much younger, when Hogwarts was still exciting and he couldn’t wait to get on a broom. Instead he’d thought of a cat who helped him fall asleep, and even he knew that was ridiculous. 

“I only sleep when you’re around, and I’m so tired,” his voice was soft and shaky near the end. 

He should’ve just gone after the Prefects like he’d been planning to, now everything was messed up and he wondered if the cat would ever seek him out again. Perhaps he’d have to give up before Vera got wind of him trying to find her and made sure that her cat would never escape again. 

“Just go,” he said in an exhale as he tried to quiet the thoughts rushing through his mind. Ever since he’d been home they pushed and pulled at him whenever there was a moment of emptiness. The questions and comments that he wished he could say piled high within him and sat in the back of his throat. Surely there was someone better for the job, so why him? Draco knew the answer, but couldn’t help asking over and over again hoping it would somehow change. 

When he looked back up the cat was gone, and he didn’t blame her. Draco was pretty sure any cat would run off after he’d tried to manhandle it so poorly, he really should know how to hold a cat. The next day felt longer than usual, especially with what happened the night before still stuck in his mind. One silly, little cat had become such an important existence to him he was actually angry with himself for handling it so badly. 

A trill broke through his thoughts and had him jerking to look around for where it might’ve come from and there she was. Staring at him from on top of one of the staircases as he was about to trudge down the next one. He’d skipped supper after not having much of an appetite since lunch, and found that he liked how empty the castle was when everyone was eating. 

She looked at him with the same expression that she always offered, as if he was old news she was tired of listening to. Her appearance made him smile a little, and then she was padding down the stairs towards him until she threaded through his legs like she used to do before holiday. From past experiences he knew that this meant she wanted him to follow her, if he didn’t she’d meow at him and glance back his way every few seconds to see if he was still there. 

In the castle there were many halls and rooms that Draco had never walked into, let alone seen, yet the cat seemed to know a many number of them. She was taking him to one of them now, as they walked down a hall he didn’t even know existed where a large painting hung at a dead end. There were two old witches sitting around a circular table with tea in the picture who roused awake almost immediately when the cat trilled a couple times. They were both wearing the same clothes and had the same faces, twins probably. 

“Haven’t seen you in a while,” one of them muttered. 

“She brought a friend this time-,” 

“He looks so young-,” 

“Need a place to hide again?” 

It was hard to follow who was saying what when they started speaking, their voices no more than a whisper as they tried to talk over each other. The grey feline stood as tall as she could muster and the two sisters reached down, as if to touch her paws, to the frame while the cat switched to purring for a second. 

“Do you think he has a twin?” 

“No one else comes up here except Vera.” 

“If he does-,” 

“It’ll be nice to talk to someone else.” 

“Do you have a twin?” 

At the mention of Vera, Draco hesitated, trying to process the new information that had been so easily handed over to him. He hadn’t even needed to ask, or think about what would be the right way to word the question. If there had been any lingering question about whether or not Vera owned the cat it was out the window now as she had probably come here with the feline before, which was why it knew the way and was recognizable to the painting. He wasn’t sure if it meant much of anything, after all, he was still no closer to knowing who Vera was, but to be one of two people who knew about something felt kind of good. 

“I don’t,” he shrugged. He’d almost forgotten to answer the sister, though she had been staring at him expectantly. 

“Shame.” Was all that followed as the panting came away from the wall to reveal a small room. 

“Just ignore her, that’s what I do,” another voice called out. 

As the painting closed behind them it become completely black in the room and had Draco pulling out his wand and half muttering lumos before it came back into focus. There were no windows on the walls and was about the size of a small office. A small table with an old lamp on it turned on when the cat walked in front of it and cast a dim light that hugged the stone corners just barely, illuminating an olive-green colored couch. A few pillows were scattered around on the floor, and a light blue blanket hung over one of the arm rests. 

They probably belonged to Vera, since she was the only other one who came up here, according to the painting. He let himself sink into the couch after sitting down, it felt like the cushions were sucking him in as he leaned back. When the cat jumped up next to him he shifted to make room, but instead had the feline tumbling over to his side and on top of his legs. She moved to get away, probably situate herself on the side opposite of him but he stopped her with a pat on the head. 

In here they were alone, there was nothing else to worry about, no one to question what he was doing or speculate against him. No one would be able to find them either, and it felt great. 

“It’s okay,” he muttered petting her head. she purred at his touch and, this time, he didn’t remove his hand until darkness finally welcomed him.


	12. She Has Plans

He went back to the secret room a couple times by himself, hoping to either catch a glimpse of Vera or the cat, but both of them seemed to go there earlier in the day, according to the Twins in the painting anyway. Within three encounters they had become fast friends, at least that was what they had called it. They babbled endlessly about how lonely they were being in such a secluded hallway that no one knew about. Other paintings didn’t come to visit because there was no one else around to talk to and the scenery was just a long hallway with no windows and turned off into a brick wall, so there wasn’t much to look at. Which also meant that they had little to no concept of time, as he figured out when he asked when they thought Vera usually came around during the day. 

Was it yesterday that she had been there to greet them, or last night? No, not the night before because he had been there and she hadn’t, so possibly in the morning, or at lunch time as she had some food with her. Most talks he shared with them left him with more questions than answers, and by the time he got in the room his thoughts were so jumbled up he’d fall asleep for a couple hours against the pillows. They were never completely empty naps, near the end a nightmare would sneak in, jerk him awake, and remind him why he needed the cat all over again. The Twins were also no help when it came to describing what Vera looked like, and just kept saying that she was young and going places. 

“She has plans,” one of them nodded. 

“She’s going to help people,” the other finished. 

“She helps us.” 

“Talks to us-,” 

“When we’re lonely.” 

“What happens when she graduates?” He’d asked at one point. It left them quiet for a little while before they responded in unison. 

“We’ll miss her.” 

Another thing he noticed was that the light didn’t turn on for him when he walked into the room, he had to do it himself in order to be able to see everything. Vera had probably charmed it to recognize her, since she was the one who had cast the spell. 

The Prefects weren’t of much help to him either, as he was only able to meet with Anthony, and he didn’t seem too keen to talk to him since he’d been neglecting his duties. Draco had been hoping that Padma would be around because she would’ve certainly known more about the girl than her male counterpart. He’d also been pretty harsh the previous year and earned the disdain of all the others almost immediately, but hadn’t cared about it until now. The way the Ravenclaw looked at him spoke volumes about what he was going to get from him. 

“Vera? Yeah, I know her,” Anthony said after he’d asked about her. 

“Well, I need to talk to her,” Draco explained. He stood a little straighter, trying to appear taller than usual, as if to intimidate him, but the other student only eyed him with a frown. 

“I can assure you, she has caused no trouble, because she never does. Why do you want to talk to her?” He muttered. 

“You can’t be sure of that,” he almost growled in response. 

Why was it that Vera was so hard to find, or even ask questions about? If it had been any other person he was trying to find he was sure they would’ve crossed paths at some point or have been easily pointed out during breakfast, but not Vera. It almost felt like everyone was protecting her, since they refused to give him any information that was a benefit. All the Ravenclaws seemed to know who she was, or had at least heard of her, yet refused to give anything about her out to anyone else. 

“Tell me what she did,” Anthony countered. He hadn’t excepted the Prefect to go so far for the younger student. “I’ll talk to her.” 

“Never mind,” Draco scoffed. He started walking away, but turned around briefly to see that the other boy was still standing where he had left him, as if to emphasize his defiance. 

He started going in the middle of the day after eating lunch in a flurry, but never passed anyone on the way, nor met Vera, or even the cat, inside the room or outside of it. Yet the Twins always said that Vera had been there and he started to doubt their credibility, if they didn’t know what time of day it was would they even know if the previous one had passed? Morning was the last option to catching sight of her. 

When they ran into each other he hadn’t even been paying attention to where he was. Morning was the last time available that she could possibly be going to visit the Twins in the painting or entering the room. He was moving sluggishly, not used to wandering around the castle so early in the day, and blinking around the sun that was beginning to blare through the windows onto his tired eyes. It was the first hallway he had to turn down in order to get there. Draco only ever remembered because there was a painting of a bird on a branch that would ruffle its feathers whenever someone went by. 

As he turned the corner and stifled a yawn a smaller body ran into him. His eyes snapped open to look down at the person below him to see the top of someone’s head. The small speck of a student in front of him couldn’t be much more than five feet tall. When they moved back a little, he saw that it was a girl, who was looking at him with a little bit of shock on her face, but it quickly turned stoic. She had golden, tanned skin, and curly black, wild, hair that went just past her shoulders. There was something familiar about the way she looked that Draco couldn’t quite place and before he could figure it out she spoke. 

“Sorry,” she rushed out, not giving him a chance to respond. Then she was moving around him quickly, running down the hall the way he had just come from before Draco even had time to register the color of her tie, which was Ravenclaw blue. 

“Wait,” he called out into the hallway. Turning to follow after her he was back at the bird again who had just finished ruffling its feathers, but there was no one to be seen around them. It had more than likely been Vera, but since he had no idea what she looked like it had taken him a second to react to her. 

With a huff he resumed his path to where the Twins and the secret room were located. Vera was shorter than he’d been expecting, although now that he had finally, probably, seen her, he realized he’d been trying to place her name to a face he had already seen. Partly hoping that he had, in fact, seen her before and that she would eventually appear during a meal. That didn’t mean that he would know it was her, but he was trying to be optimistic. 

She looked a lot younger than a fifth year. Wyndham was a year below him so he’d just assumed that his friend would be the same age, but it was possible that she wasn’t. Maybe he should’ve been asking the first years about her instead. 

“You just missed Vera.” One of the sisters said to him. 

“Again.” The other muttered. 

“You always miss her.” 

“How sad.” 

Thus far they had been pretty useless when it came to answering his questions, but perhaps he had been asking the wrong ones. If they were easier and had yes or no answers, there was a chance it could work. 

“Would you say Vera is short?” He questioned thinking of the somewhat timid girl from just minutes ago. 

“Compared to who?” They countered. 

“To you?” 

“Maybe.” 

“She’s certainly not tall.” They looked at each other thoughtfully after that. 

“Course we’ve never seen her next to anyone else.” 

“We never see anyone else anyway.” 

“True.” 

Draco had yet to ask them another question, he felt a little bad that they were sad about the lack of visitors but he was still thrumming with excitement and anticipation from his encounter. 

“Does she have curly black hair?” He persisted. 

“Very curly.” One of them responded. 

“Looks like a lion when she doesn’t brush it.” The comment earned a frown from the other sister. 

“Don’t be mean.” 

“It’s true.” 

“But you don’t have to say it.” 

“Did you meet her?” One of them asked him. 

“Kind of,” he muttered. Now he knew what Vera looked like, which was supposed to make him feel better, to get him closer to his goal of asking about the cat, but it didn’t. She had run away from him as quickly as possible, if that wasn’t a sign that she didn’t want to talk to him he didn’t know what was.


	13. A Discovery?

She was nowhere to be found in the days that followed. Draco had resumed his search in the halls and during meals after seeing what Vera looked like but was having no luck in even spotting her from the other side of the room. Which shouldn’t have surprised him as much as it did, since she had been that way since he’d first started searching for her. Yet he was irritated, frustrated even, at how simple it should be to find her now that he had her name and would somewhat recognize her from appearance, and still she was invisible to him. Asking other houses would be a bust, since they would only ever interact with her during class, and what kind of information would that give him? That she was a good student? Most Ravenclaws were. 

What made him all the angrier was now he could only rest in the secret room, as the couch he used to doze off on no longer had the cat to keep him company or help him sleep. The grey feline had been missing since the initial reveal of what was behind the Twins, he hadn’t even caught a glimpse of her in Wyndham’s arms. Although the younger student was still present during breaks and in the great hall, he never cast a look in Draco’s direction, it was as if they’d never even spoken to each other. 

There was something about the small dark space that allowed him to fall into a dreamless sleep, and he had no idea what it was. Perhaps the cat was going there with Vera and the feline’s lingering presence was some sort of comfort to him. Or it could be that the room was enchanted, the smaller student could have charmed it, brewed a certain potion in there that caused drowsiness. Although this sounded silly, even to Draco’s addled mind. All he was certain of was the few hours of bliss that came when he sat down on the couch, leaned against all the pillows, and picked up the blanket that was always discarded haphazardly on the floor. Even the idle chatter of the Twins was a relief compared to everyone else in the castle, their chittering held no weight, and most of the time didn’t even require an answer from him. 

He’d stopped hanging around the common room and instead snuck off into Hogwarts most nights, always in the same direction, careful that no one was following him, but watching for another, smaller, figure in the dark. It’d been a week and a half since he ran into Vera when he heard a very familiar trill. It stopped him dead in his tracks as he trudged towards the door, a few second years eyed him curiously as they came back from supper, but he paid them no attention. 

Another trill followed shortly, and Draco turned around abruptly, his eyes scanning the area frantically, as if he had heard wrong, it could be another cat after all. The bookcases in front of the windows that looked into the lake were empty, and he couldn’t help but recall all those nights the feline had gazed into the murky water. After throwing a skeptical glance at the couch he used to occupy, and finding it full of first years, he looked to where Bridget usually sat, but the chair was empty. He really should’ve just asked the younger girl about Vera, but she always seemed to be in her room, or surrounded by other kids. There were many people who knew the cat and didn’t know who it belonged to as well, Bridget was probably the same. 

Meal time was just finishing up as he spotted them, finally, and he was almost thankful for the rush of students that suddenly flooded the common room. It allowed him to move amongst them and claim a seat that overlooked the pair vaguely, he sunk into an uncomfortable chair anxiously, casting an irritated expression at anyone who drew too near. 

The grey feline was laying down on one of the study tables in front of Bridget, who seemed to be talking to her in a hushed voice. Making Draco wish he was close enough to hear what was being said, although that would certainly give him away as an eavesdropper. It was perhaps the first time he wished he had one of those silly extendable ears. He couldn’t see the girls face from the angle he was at, and even the feline seemed to be looking away, but he didn’t care. 

For a few minutes Draco was lost in thought, trying to figure out whether or not he should just go up to the younger student and take the cat, or demand information about what she might know. He barely even registered that the feline was looking his way until she trilled again. 

Bridget was petting her on the head, more naturally than he had ever seemed to manage, the cat looked his way for a moment and he froze. His mind instantly jumping back to the crash meeting he’d had with Vera, and why she had looked so familiar to him. There was her wild, untamable hair that the Twins commented on, her small stature, a soft, surprised expression, and her eyes. Wide and shocked, there was no way to miss the colors. One of them was brown, and one of them was blue, just like the cat in front of him. Why he hadn’t realized it before was a mystery, although he had yet to see either of them since, and he was so caught up with finding Vera that he’d forgotten about the cat. 

A few things clicked into place as he stared after the pair in front of him, who had already turned away. He’d never seen Vera before, not even the previous year, as far as he could recall, but the cat always turned up around the castle. The smaller student was never around during breaks or meals, yet the cat was usually out exploring, or sitting next to others in the hall. 

Could Vera be an Animagus? 

It was possible, that she had just found a cat with the same eyes she had, there were animals like that, but it sounded strange. There was Professor McGonagall, who was a cat Animagus as well, who had markings around her eyes for glasses, to show that she was human. That could easily mean Vera took her eyes with her and that was how people would recognize her. 

Although it wouldn’t matter if the human form was never around for other people to see. It made sense, kind of, because more people knew about the cat than they did about Vera. It also meant that the feline hadn’t been restrained in Ravenclaw tower, just that Vera was avoiding him because he was getting too close to figuring it out. 

She was pretty young, to have an Animagus form, although it wasn’t unheard of. 

With a slight growl Draco jerked up suddenly, his mind racing with what he’d just discovered, or hoped he had discovered anyway. He’d leave a note in the room tonight, telling Vera to meet him or he’d give away her secret to the professors. If he was right, she’d be there, and if he wasn’t then, he’d be back at square one.


	14. Experiments

He left a note in the room that night, it was simple and short, perhaps threatening, but Draco didn’t really care. His mind was still racing with the new information, and even though he’d put in the short message to meet in two days, after classes were over on Friday, he anxiously waited on the couch both evenings that followed. Wondering which questions were best to ask or how he should appear to the younger student. He could start of demanding and stern, but that might scare her off from telling him what he needed to know. Yet if he was too calm, or lenient with her, she might not want to talk to him at all. How did he appear to her at the moment? Did it matter in the long run? 

Little sleep came to him in those days that he mulled over everything, going over how Vera looked in his head when they had met and how she would appear to him again. He knew next to nothing about her, only what her name was, she was in Ravenclaw, and her cat had been helping him sleep for some reason. Even Wyndham was more well known to him than the girl, and the dark-skinned boy made it clear Draco would get no information out of him. If the constant looks of disdain and avoidance were anything to go by anyway, it was as if the boy knew he was asking around about Vera. There was also the question of whether or not she would show up at all, he at least knew that she had read the note because it had been moved slightly when he came back to check on it. 

All this had him feeling more worn down than usual, because the more he thought about it the more he realized that this might screw up his sleep pattern. The small amount of rest that he was able to get hinged on whatever was going on with Vera the cat and her secret room. It was only a few empty hours here and there that allowed him a break from the endless worry about what was happening, and the nightmares that came when, finally, his body gave up. 

There was a chance that after this meeting with the girl she would refuse to help him anymore, but what was it that he needed help with? He’d been thinking about the questions he was going to ask the entire time he was in class, the professors droned on in the background as he imagined possible outcomes. 

Why was she always in cat form and not human form? Was it thanks to her that he had finally gotten some rest? Why was he still able to sleep in the secret room when she wasn’t there? Did she know why everyone was protecting her? 

They swirled within him endlessly, repeating until he could think of nothing else but what he should say first to the girl, which question was the most important? Was she an Animagus? Was she the cat that almost everyone in Hogwarts knew? It would be ironic, because countless people knew about the brown and blue-eyed feline, but very few people outside of Ravenclaw had even heard of Vera, or knew what she looked like. 

“You’ve been coming by a lot lately,” one of the twins commented upon seeing him. 

“I think he likes me,” the other whispered. 

“He probably likes the quiet.” 

“I’ve always been the prettier sister.” 

“We both look the same.” 

“My lips are-,” 

“We’re identical twins,” one of them huffed dismissively. 

“Seen Vera lately?” He interrupted. He was worried they might look at him strangely, because he usually just let them ramble until the painting opened, but they continued undeterred. 

“Yesterday.” One of them answered. 

“It could have been this morning,” the other argued. 

Slowly they came away from the wall to reveal a dark room inside making him sigh anxiously. Although he was somewhat early, having skipped supper. He was tense, his stomach in knots over the whole thing, and it was starting to give him a head ache. As the canvas returned to its normal spot, he was soon enveloped in darkness and lazily cast a lumos spell to illuminate his surroundings faintly. He was staring dejectedly at the glow of his wand when the twins could be heard from the other side, speaking over each other in excited voices. He didn’t move, even as light from the hall began to flood in and touched the tips of his shoes which were closest to the entrance. 

Then she was walking in, eyeing him with a tired stare as she circled around the couch, the lamp flickering on as she passed by. He let his wand go out and returned it to his pocket as she came to a stop in front of him. 

For a second it was quiet as they looked at each other, this time he immediately recognized her mismatched eyes from the cat. Her hair was wild again and vaguely Draco wondered if she hadn’t brushed it, as the twins had mentioned it got that way sometimes. She didn’t look anxious, the same way he felt, if anything she appeared to be somewhat annoyed, but she was there. Which meant that she was, in fact, the cat, an Animagus. 

After all the searching he’d done, and nights spent awake and confused here she was. Staring at him blandly as if she was a seventh year student being scolded for something silly she did in class. 

“I just want to ask you some questions,” he said leaning back into the couch. 

“And if I don’t answer them?” She questioned. Her voice was calm, and the image of her shrinking beneath his gaze dissipated immediately from his mind. 

“Then I’ll report you as an unregistered Animagus,” his tone darkened at her response. She was quiet for a moment and he continued to observe her as she considered things, she had soft facial features and a relaxed demeanor. When she’d spoken her voice had been calm and almost soothing, as if she was trying to calm down a raging beast. 

“Ask away,” she leaned against the wall behind her. 

He faltered for a moment, suddenly unsure of which question to start with, even though he’d been through this talk many times in his head, now that it was happening everything vacated him. It was similar to how he’d felt as a first year when he spoke uncertainly to an upperclassman, and he chided himself for it. Vera was younger than him, she should be the one in this state. 

“Did I start to fall asleep because of you?” He said, leveling her with a hard stare. It was the main one he’d been asking since the first few times it happened, although back then he may have thought a cat to be magical. 

“Yes,” was all she said in response. 

“Why, how?” He stumbled a little. Part of him thought there might be some push back from the smaller girl, that she could play clueless in order to confuse him, but she answered immediately. 

“I was experimenting,” she started. “There’s only one remedy for dreamless sleep in the Castle, one potion anyway. If you take it too often the effects wear off and have little to no effect, it can also be quite finicky, in terms of how much sleep is granted,” she explained. Draco followed as well as he could, but couldn’t help to think that she definitely belonged in Ravenclaw with how detailed she was. “I’m working on more stable doses, and a stronger formula for those who have been taking it for many years.” She finished and looked at him much the same as before, as if she hadn’t spoken at all. 

“I never drank anything?” He sounded accusing. 

“Turned it into a powder and rubbed it into your skin,” she replied simply. “I put it on that pillow as well.” 

The one she pointed at was the most comfortable one that was always on the floor when he entered the room, he picked it up every time he walked in. It was a soft velvety texture that was a deeply colored purple. That was why he’d been able to sleep, even though the cat wasn’t anywhere near him, he didn’t have to ask that anymore. 

“Why did you help me?” Draco knew what other students thought, and said, about him. The only reason someone would help him was if they wanted something in return, but he had a feeling that if that was the case, he would’ve known about her a long time ago. 

“You were exhausted,” she muttered. It was the first time since they started speaking that her tone changed, and her expression looked a little forlorn now. “So, I helped.” 

“I want the potion,” he growled suddenly. Her eyes hardened slightly, but she didn’t appear to be angry, or put off. He wasn’t about to give up what little sleep was offered to him, and there was no room for her to refuse. 

“Okay.” 

The reply surprised him. This was too easy, she wasn’t pushing back against him at all, there was no fight to what he thought was blackmail. 

“You have to be careful with it, if you take too much you could be asleep for a couple days,” she said. Then she was pulling it out of her pocket, the small vial of bright purple liquid seemed to glow in the dim light around them. 

“I’ll need more than this,” he hissed. At this point he was trying to be a little meaner, if only to get a reaction out of the girl. After he took the potion, she handed him a small locket, one that he recognized from being around her neck when she was in cat form. He turned it over in his fingers, thinking about those days so long in the past. 

“I have one as well,” she showed him. “Open it when you need more,” she waited for him to do it. “Mine will turn green, and I’ll come find you.” He flicked it open easily and watched as the one in her fingers changed color to a murky pine. “Any other questions?” 

“Why does everyone in Ravenclaw protect you?” He pushed further, expecting much the same reaction as before. A quick answer and bored gaze. “No one would tell me anything about you,” he said. The way his tone changed made it sound bad, as if she had done something wrong, and for the first time she stiffened slightly. 

“I won’t answer that one,” she muttered in the same soft voice. Then she was turning to leave and Draco stood jerkily, lips thinning into a frown of confusion. He’d finally found something she didn’t want to talk about and it was time to abuse the truth and turn it into blackmail. Part of him was almost excited to hear something that was obviously a secret, information that was hidden from most everyone. 

“You have to answer me,” he snapped at her and she barely turned to respond to him. 

“No, I don’t.” 

“Vera-,” he started but she cut him off. 

“I’m already registered Draco,” she tapped the painting lightly. Speaking again when it started to move. “If you have any other questions, I’ll answer them next time.” 

As soon as she passed through the doorway, and light from the hall started to spill into the room the lamp flickered off and she turned into the cat he was used to. Her mismatched gaze looked back at him for a second before she was running back into the noise of the castle, where all the other students milled about. Leaving him to sit, once again, in the dark.


	15. Too Much

Draco spent the rest of the evening thinking about their conversation, and what had been revealed to him in the last few sentences of their talk. Vera was already registered and had come to meet him anyway, she had the upper hand the whole time and still made it seem like he was the one in charge, and she even agreed to help him. His threats had been pointless, and the thought made him burn with embarrassment. She was going to continue helping him either way, whether or not they met at all. That’s what the pillow was in the secret room, it was her connection to his struggle that she could help with, she’d never stopped. 

Then he’d gone and threatened her and she didn’t even bat an eye. In hindsight, Draco realized bitterly, that he was the one who owed her, not the other way around. Yet she had demanded nothing from the older boy, the only thing she’d denied was information about herself. It had him curious because she’d given up everything else so easily, but refused him and then left just as quickly as she always seemed to. It was strange, to have gotten what he wanted without having to do anything nasty or pull out his wand as if to hex her. She gave him what he wanted and left. She didn’t want anything from him, and somehow, he felt anxious about it. 

He drank the potion that night, and it was the first time he’d slept in his room in Hogwarts in a long time, probably since the previous school year, or the very beginning of this one. Vera had been right though, about how the dosage should be cut down or made less potent, because he didn’t wake up until lunch time the next day. He realized, haltingly, that the vial had probably been intended for more than just one night. The dreamless aspect of his sleep made it seem like he’d just put his head on the pillow before he was blinking against the faint light of day that filtered through the lake water into his room. Except he felt so rested and energized it couldn’t be mistaken that a lot of time had passed since he’d consumed it. 

For the first time in a while, he sat next to his friends at lunch, although talking about classes and teachers still fell flat on him. Out of the corner of his eye a girl with messy black hair walked into the dining hall, making him jerk to look at her suddenly, but it wasn’t Vera and he almost laughed at himself for thinking it was. She’d never been there for meal times before, as far as he could tell, why would she decide to start now? 

Although, part of him thought that she had only been avoiding meals because he was there and she was avoiding him, the other side of him figured she was never there anyway. He’d like to think that he would’ve noticed the girl before, because of her unique gaze, but at the same time he knew that wasn’t true. He didn’t care to look at the other tables, most of the time he didn’t even care about the rest of his house outside of his friend group. 

He didn’t start to sag in the evening, like he was used to and, having spent most of the day with his mates, sat with them again in the common room. But this time when he thought he saw a mismatched gaze he was right. Cat Vera was lying on the top of the chair that Bridget was sitting in, staring into the lake like she had at the very beginning of the school year, as if nothing had ever happened. Draco had to tell himself again that she had been there for her Slytherin friend first, that the only reason she had ever even approached him was because of the younger girl’s disappearance for a while. 

Little clues fell into place, and made more sense as he thought about all the things that had happened around the cat. When Wyndham and Bridget had been fighting in the hall and the girl had instructed him to take care of ‘her’ and tell ‘her’ to stay away, they had been talking about Vera. He hadn’t seen the cat for a while because the dark-skinned boy had picked her up whenever they crossed paths, because she was going to the Slytherin common room for Bridget. 

The night before he’d almost laughed when the lamp in the secret room had turned on for Vera, just as it had for the cat. He’d assumed that since she was the one to charm the thing it would only do it for her, and without realizing it he’d been right, because Vera was the cat. He watched her from afar, catching her eyes a couple times until she jumped off the chair and headed towards the door. Bridget got up as well, walking towards the girl’s rooms before the cat had even moved out of sight. A mismatched gaze kept glancing back to stare at him every few steps she took, which meant she wanted him to follow. 

A simple excuse was all his mates needed to go back to the conversation they had been having without him as he moved to follow the grey feline out of the common room. 

“I didn’t open the locket,” he stated when they were alone in the hallway. Only a trill came in response, which could have meant anything as far as he knew. He’d thought about asking to meet that night, because the potion was already gone, but he wasn’t very tired. Though, he also didn’t want to admit to her that he had taken the entire thing without even thinking about how long it might last. 

She led him down to another place he’d never seen before and sat patiently in front of a closed door, of a classroom he’d never been in. It was locked until he pulled out his wand and flicked it lazily, creaking open to reveal a dusty, unused room, with no windows. Vera went inside quickly, disappearing among the shadows while the door swung shut behind them. Light bloomed from lumos a second later to reveal that she’d already changed back and was pulling out her own wand, which she used to light a handful of severely melted candles. 

“You used the entire potion last night, didn’t you?” she asked as he continued to look around the room. There were chairs and tables pushed on top of each other around the corners of the room and a desk where a professor may have once sat, piled high with what looked to be old textbooks. It was smaller than most of the other classrooms, which meant it was for a higher-level class, possibly students in their seventh year. 

“I did,” he replied. “Now, I know it was for two nights.” For a second, after he spoke, Vera looked as if she was disappointed in him until he made the second comment. 

“Yeah, I forgot to tell you,” she muttered, putting her wand away. 

“What class was this room for?” He questioned, still curious about the abandoned state of it. 

“An old muggle studies course, about American music. Not enough students signed up for it,” she explained while pulling a few small vials out of her pocket. “These have already been portioned, should give you around six hours of sleep.” Vera held out her closed fist to him, dropping them in his palm when it was offered. He transferred them to his own pocket as she looked past him towards the door, apparently already done with the conversation. 

“Did you sign up for it?” He asked. He didn’t know very much about the younger girl, and was still very skeptical about why she was helping him. Perhaps if he got to know her better it would come to light. 

“That was eight years ago, I wasn’t here yet,” she answered. “Textbook isn’t bad, if you’re curious,” she said, lingering by the door for a second. He realized suddenly that she was waiting for another question, because she had said she would answer them if he thought of more. 

“Why are you an Animagus?” He’d been thinking about it since finding out she was the cat. Vera was young and apparently the process of unlocking the skill was tedious and difficult, at least he’d been told it was. Probably so she could get around easily, people didn’t question the cats. 

“It’s easier to hide, and explore,” she said without delay. Looking at him expectantly once more before figuring out he didn’t have another one for her. “Bye Draco.” 

Her wand was out for a second and the door was pushed open before she was changing back into a cat and padding out into the hallway, leaving him alone in the candlelit, dusky, old room. He’d already assumed that she used it to get around, and hiding made sense when Filch was so eager to catch people out and about when they weren’t supposed to be. 

All he’d found out about her, thus far, was that she knew more about the castle than he did, although that wasn’t too surprising since she was a Ravenclaw.


	16. Busy Bathroom

It was a good distraction for Draco, learning about Vera, which was somewhat silly whenever he thought about it. Here he was at Hogwarts, where any number of classes could have easily caught his attention and pulled his mind away from what he was tasked with. Yet they held no candle to the, somewhat, less mysterious Ravenclaw student who was a cat half of the time. It was also something he desperately needed, because according to Snape the wine idea had fallen short, although he had managed to get one of Potter’s friends with it. The school year was dragging on, and even though he was sleeping more normally now, the weight of his duties on his back was making him more and more anxious as the days passed. 

Then there was Vera. Untouched by what was happening to him and everyone else in the castle. More often seen wandering the halls in her feline form, his curiosity chased after her as he wondered where she might be going. He asked her random questions that bothered him during classes, sometimes she didn’t answer them, but most of the time her reply was quick and offered little in the way of expression. Another bonus was being led to many different parts of the Castle that he’d never seen before, hidden rooms and hallways that Vera had found on her nightly explorations. If anyone ever had to find her it would be impossible with all the different spots. 

Her last name was Sotelo, she became an Animagus in the middle of the previous school year, which would explain why she only popped up near the very end of classes. A lot of time at school was spent with Madam Pomfrey and Professor Sprout, as she explained that it was the help her perfect her sleep potion. Although there had been a little bit of hesitation with that release of information, and Draco was sure she excluded things from him, but whether or not they were important was the real question. Wyndham was her childhood friend, and she’d met Bridget on the train during her first year at Hogwarts, the fact that they were split into different houses didn’t bother Vera in the slightest. 

There were some bits of information that she was reluctant to give up, such as her dad working in the ministry and that she was pure-blood. He’d asked her, more than a few times, what she was hoping to get from helping him, as he was still somewhat suspicious of how easy all of this was. Mostly her response was she was still, experimenting and, if anything, it was a mutual deal seeing as he was her test subject. Except that the potion was always the same, and nothing strange had happened to him. 

Everything was going on smoothly until it wasn’t anymore. Katie was going to be back soon, at least that was what the rumor mill was saying these days, they’d been talking about it in the common room. Draco suddenly remembered what happened to her, and how he’d failed, the nightmares that promised fatigue haunted him. He would’ve been okay, if she hadn’t walked in front of him and started talking to Potter. He shouldn’t have run away like he did, it looked guilty, even though he was. Potter was always so suspicious, but with the way that Katie had looked at him for that moment they caught eyes, she had to know. Which meant everything was ruined, they would catch him, he would know, and so Draco ran. 

Myrtle tried to talk to him but everything went by in a blur, if he had been revealed he was as good as dead. What would his parents say? Would Snape vouch for him? Could he still complete his task? Was there something left he could do? He didn’t want to die. 

Potter was suddenly in the mirror and they exchanged curses and hexes so quickly he couldn’t keep up. Myrtle was screaming, and all that was going through his mind was a running image of himself dying in different ways, and his parents weeping. 

Water turned red from his blood, the curse ripped up his skin like wet paper in the wind. It was on his face and it hurt to breathe, he could feel blood running down his cheeks as he laid on the flooded floor of the bathroom. He could think of nothing else but the burning pain, even with Potter next to him muttering about how he didn’t mean to Draco could barely hear him. Even Myrtle screaming had become somewhat muted. 

What followed afterwards was a mess of memories as Snape entered the room and stitched his wounds back together. He was pulled to his feet and somewhat dragged towards the hospital wing, stumbling over his own shoes as he glanced down at his once bleeding chest. He was helped onto a bed with the remnants of his shirt carefully taken off before a single word woke him from his stupor. 

“Vera.” 

He looked around frantically at the name, coming back to reality as the younger girl’s face came into view, she looked worried. She handed something off to Madam Pomfrey and then the Ravenclaw student was gone, covered by a frowning Snape who spoke to the matron quickly before turning back the way he had come. 

She was back again after the Professor had left but the fretful expression that had painted her features before had gone, and was replaced by her normal, bland one. Her usually wild black hair was secured into a messy ponytail and over her uniform was a white apron, slightly similar to the one the older woman was sporting. Draco remembered that she had said she spent a lot of time with the Matron, although he didn’t think it meant that she was actually helping out. 

“Go to class now, Vera,” the older woman said towards the younger girl. “You’ve helped enough this morning.” Draco looked at her curiously, ignoring the still lingering pain, and wondered how she spoke to teachers, if it was the same as with him. 

“Yes, ma’am,” was all she offered before walking off. He watched her until Madam Pomfrey got in the way and started treating him with Dittany. Again, Vera had become a much-needed distraction, something he hadn’t known he needed until it was right in front of him. He tried to hold onto the memory of her in his mind, the worried expression she’d offered to him was one of the few differences he’d ever seen. 

Yet the feeling of his flesh tearing open was stronger, the way blood had oozed out of him and the searing pain that blossomed across his body won over. Even with his cuts growing new skin and looking old and healed he couldn’t get it out of his head. He even found himself wishing for something that was dark and should never have crossed his mind, but with the looming threat it was only a matter of time. If he were to die, or get killed, he wanted it to be quick. Nothing like the tearing of skin he’d now experienced


	17. The Secret Room

He didn’t want to sleep now, not after trying to the night before. It’d felt like he was slipping away, like it’d been while he was lying on the flooded bathroom floor. As if pieces of him were falling into darkness, while the rest of his mind had been alighted with pain and fear of what was happening. The dreamless sleep had whisked him off in much the same fashion and as it faded and as he woke, he found himself breathing heavily. Clutching at his chest and face where the rips and scars had almost completely disappeared, but still lingered in his memory. 

All the potions had been used up but he didn’t call for Vera that night, and instead found himself walking towards the Twins, who lit up at his figure appearing in the hall. They chattered, as they always did, and opened the door for him after asking him a few questions he didn’t answer. For once, understanding the look of exhaustion and irritation on his face as something that had nothing to do with them. 

“Something must have happened,” one of them muttered. 

“Nightmares,” the other whispered. Draco could just barely make out the rest of her comment before the painting closed again. “Just like Vera.” 

Most of the night was spent on the couch, alternating between moving the pillows around and pulling the blanket on and off of himself. It was silly, that he’d ended up here of all places in the castle, but he knew why that was. This was the first place he always thought of when he wanted to be alone, where he felt the safest and secluded from what was happening to him. Potter didn’t know where this was, Snape didn’t, the dark lord didn’t, his parents, and perhaps even Dumbledore had no idea this existed. The only person who did was no threat to him, and she certainly wasn’t going to pop in anytime soon. Vera had agreed to help him sleep, sure, but this was a different matter entirely. He didn’t want slip into darkness right now, and so he had no use for her. 

Though his mind did wander to what one of the ladies in the painting had said before closing off entirely. He’d never really questioned why Vera would want to tamper and experiment with the dreamless sleep potion before, hadn’t even considered that she could be using it herself. That was another question he could ask her, once the fear of sleeping had waned a little more. 

A new idea had popped into his head during school the next day, that he’d deserved to be cut up for what he’d done to Katie. Even if it hadn’t been intentional, even though he felt terrible about it afterwards and couldn’t get the image of her being tortured and screaming out of his head. 

It toyed with him during potions class, while dozing off slightly he’d surprised himself with the short dream that plagued his mind. Instead of Katie being pulled up into the air it was Vera, and when she opened her mouth to shriek it was Myrtle’s voice that echoed. He ran over to her body after it fell and hesitantly turned her onto her back only to jerk away when he saw that it was his own, covered in blood where the spell had cut him. But instead of Snape or Harry standing over him it was the dark lord. 

What scared him most was the latter end of the dream, and confusion came in the form of the younger Ravenclaw student appearing in it at all. The sight of her, suspended in the air, had made his heart leap into his throat from the shock and sudden worry that happened all at once. She wasn’t supposed to be there. 

The dream made him somewhat twitchy for the remainder of the day, and after a very quick meal he was trudging back towards the secret room. Ignoring anything his friends questioned of him, and making his way towards the now familiar couch and pillows that he’d grown used to. The twins bickered slightly and let him in without too much hassle, although their questions followed him into the room. 

Once inside, he did his best not to doze off, especially after the nightmare that had plagued him in class, yet exhaustion pulled him under regardless. He woke suddenly, realizing all at once that Vera was sitting next to him on the couch, reading a book lazily, as if she had been there the whole time. Draco breathed somewhat heavily, but pulled himself back together so his voice wouldn’t shake when he spoke. 

“What do you want?” He questioned. Her mismatched gaze moved over to him slowly, undeterred by the edge in his tone. 

“I came here to read,” she muttered, her eyes flicking back onto the pages. 

They weren’t touching, there was a cushion and some pillows between them, but Draco had never sat next to the girl except when she was in cat form. Yet there she was, wearing a comfortable looking dark blue cardigan and black sleeping pants. It was strange, even though he sat next to other students all the time, and had been uncomfortably close to some, why did this feel so different? 

“Can’t you read somewhere else?” He said, trying to get her to look at him again. 

“This is my couch,” she countered without moving. 

He almost growled in response, because she was right. This had been her room long before he’d ever been shown it, and he had no leverage to use against the girl. She didn’t have to give him sleeping potions, yet she was, even if he wasn’t using them at the moment, the least he could do was let her have the room. Although he still didn’t want to go. 

“Well, I’m not leaving,” he cut back. He should've asked her if he could stay, could’ve said it a different way, but he didn’t. 

“Okay.” 

That was it. She didn’t talk to him, barely even moved for the next hour as he did his best to ignore her. It was hard at first, but he was soon used to the occasional flipping of a page and her lost in thought expression. There was an expectation that came with his mates when they hung out. Conversation was needed, rarely did they sit in silence, but with Vera there was nothing of the sort. He had to remind himself that she spent many a night next to him before, in her grey feline form, about the same distance away as she was now. 

On those nights, when a cat kept him company, he didn’t mind the silence because he wasn’t alone. He had asked the cat questions before, although at that point figured an answer would not come in any language he could understand, such was not the case now. 

“Do you help in the hospital wing often?” He said, trying not to think of what had happened that day. She didn’t answer at first, and he realized suddenly that she hadn’t quite heard him at all, probably too focused on her book. “The hospital wing,” he repeated. “How often do you help out?” 

“Tuesdays and Thursdays, during breaks and before breakfast,” she responded without looking at him. 

“You like it?” Perhaps she was there doing some sort of detention, or it could be an extra class for all he knew. 

“Yup.” Probably a voluntary thing then. 

“Is that where you get the sleeping potions?” He asked. That made her look at him, skeptically, as if she was trying to figure out what he was going for, or if there was anything she shouldn’t say. 

“It was at first, but they’re too weak for me,” she explained. “So, I started making my own.” 

“Why do you take it?” Draco pushed further. It was the most they had spoken to each other since the initial meeting about her being an Animagus, and even then, the conversation had been scarce. 

“Nightmares,” Vera answered. 

Then she turned back to her book, and he understood this as being done with the topic. It didn’t offer him much in the way of information, but made him realize that she might have helped him because she was the same way, that she may have felt pity. He frowned, but didn’t say anything. Draco never wanted to be pitied, it put a bitter taste in his mouth, yet he wasn’t angry. For some reason he couldn’t get mad at the younger girl, probably because she’d done nothing but help him. 

She was there again, the following night. This time she was writing, probably finishing a paper or something for one of her classes, they exchanged even fewer words then before. He also brought some work to finish up, but never could focus enough to finish the reading, not with the lure of sleep lingering over his worn-out mind. A few times he dozed off, jerking awake suddenly at the end of short nightmares to look upon the constant presence of Vera who was not alarmed, or even disturbed by his movements. There was no change in her, and he was glad for that. 

He fell asleep the next night almost immediately after she sat down on the couch with a book occupying her attention. Slowly, he came to, like he usually did after a dreamless sleep to see that she was still there, although in a bit of a slouching position which moved her legs a little bit closer to his side. Upon seeing movement, she glanced his way, tilting her head for a second that reminded him of when she was in cat form. Then back to her book, as if nothing happened. 

There was no fear, or nightmare, the anxiousness that he’d been feeling recently was gone and left him confused. The only thing that bothered him was a slight crick in the neck from sleeping while sitting up, but that made sense. It was the rest part, that didn’t.


	18. Who's There?

It continued like this for a couple weeks, with Draco only being able to sleep when he was around Vera, whether she was in cat form or human form didn’t matter. She was the only constant in his life at the moment, except for the nightmares anyway, they were always lingering in the back of his mind like a migraine. A book usually accompanied her, or some classwork, rarely was there a conversation between the them, if he had a question, she’d answer it, quickly and without much of a reaction. The real mystery was if she ever slept. He remembered a scarce few times that she had rested in her cat form in the Slytherin common room so long ago. Otherwise she stayed static on the couch, or in chairs, wherever they had ended up that night, her eyes barely leaving the page to acknowledge him. 

Although he thought it somewhat strange, Draco was also grateful for the persisting silence that hung between them. During the day he faked topics and interests with his mates, when other people were around and would see him wilting, he stood tall and made off as if nothing was wrong. The rare times that Vera crossed his path or caught his gaze the interaction was brief and she’d turn away just as quickly. Looking for something else to catch her attention more likely. 

Usually he slept in the Twins’ secret room, because it was one of the few places Vera had showed him that had a couch, although they had ended up in the old muggle studies classroom a few times. It had been a little uncomfortable, but sleep found him eventually in the worn our char behind the professor’s desk. He’d woken sore and alone, startling at a few paper birds that jumped around old stacks of textbooks when he shifted. The charm only lasted a few seconds before the little things unfolded and fell flat on the old wooden surface below him. 

He’d gotten so used to seeing her awake and somewhat bored looking that when he saw that she was sleeping Draco had nothing to say. The book she’d been reading was resting of her lap, still open to the chapter she was assigned for class, he could imagine it being slowly lowered as she dozed. 

Vera had told him that he didn’t have to worry about taking the potion when he was in the secret room, because she always put some on the pillows when she made a new batch. He could only assume it meant that she also came here when she needed to rest, and the only question now, was when that was. He also found out that during the earlier experiments of getting him to rest she’d sometimes accidentally get herself with the powder or the potion. Which explained why the cat was slumbering a few times in the common room. 

She looked tired, exhausted even. Why it had taken him so long to see the bags under her eyes was beyond Draco. It was obvious that she hadn’t meant it to happen, with the way she was sleeping all slumped into the couch as if she’d been resting her head against the cushions for a second. Usually the expression that adorned her face was bland, although her odd colored eyes always seemed to be set in hard indifference, as if she’d already seen everything the world had to offer. 

The lack of emotion on her face made her look younger than usual, and certainly her small stature didn’t help her. It made Draco feel guilty for a second, because at one point he hadn’t cared who she was and only wanted to exploit her. Yet, as he looked over her form now, there was a little bit of relief that came with seeing that she was getting some rest. 

There was a small part of him that was a mix of worry and curiosity for the Ravenclaw student. As soon as Draco had been told that she had nightmares all the time as well and was given the potion regularly, he wondered. What was going on with her that she needed a consistent supply of potions, or had it already happened and was still plaguing her? It was one of the original questions that he had asked her, because he wanted to know why everyone protected the younger girl, but she refused to answer. 

He was tempted to wake her, but instead leaned on the arm of the couch, staring into the dark corners of the room lazily, until he saw movement. The motion caught his attention and he jerked back to look at Vera skeptically, perhaps she had been faking being asleep to see what he would do, but that wasn’t the case. 

Tears had started to stream down her cheeks, and though he could see her eyes moving back and forth beneath the lids they did not open. He couldn’t even imagine what she might be going through at the moment, but the sight of her crying had rendered him somewhat speechless. 

“V-Vera?” He asked softly. Draco almost growled at his hesitation and volume, there was no way the girl would wake up if his voice came out as a measly whisper. 

She’d started shaking, and tried to push herself further into the couch as her eyebrows knitted together. Then she started to take long rasping breaths as if she was struggling to breathe or getting choked by something. 

“Wake up,” he said louder. Almost in response to his voice she stilled for a few seconds before starting to tremble again. He didn’t want to shake her, he’d hadn’t touched her since the first time he’d tried to pick her up in her cat form, and she seemed like the type that would shy away from any form of contact. Although, if that was how she was going to wake up, he would do it. He went to move the book away first, and then turned back to touch her shoulder to see that she’d opened her eyes. 

Draco startled at seeing her awake so suddenly, but noticed the fear that hung heavy on her features as she continued to shake like a leaf in the wind. She wasn’t crying anymore, though the tears had left shining trails down her cheeks. 

“Are you-,” he started to ask if she was okay but she shushed him. 

“He’ll hear you,” she said, barely a whisper. She gazed, unwavering, into the short hall in front of them, leading to the painting, which was enveloped in darkness. It was a familiar expression, one that he’d worn many times after waking from a nightmare, but they’d always passed as soon as he realized where he was. Did Vera not know? Where did she think she was? 

“Who?” He asked trying to get her to look at him, but she just hushed him again. “There’s no one here but us,” she stilled at his words. “Vera,” her eyes finally turned to him. 

“Draco?” She questioned, her voice still nothing more than a whisper. He nodded and she immediately stopped trembling, as if someone had taken hold of her shoulders to restrict her. 

“No one’s there.” He assured her. 

Recognition flashed across her features before she slowly began to wipe away the tears that had started to dry on her chin. Then, as if a curtain was pulled between them, Vera’s expression changed back to the same bland one she wore all the time. Before, there had been a bright, yet fearful, shine to them, that widened with vivid horror, but they were tired now. Half lidded and dull. His hand was still hovering in the air above her shoulder, he dropped it when she glanced at it warily, unsure of what he should say now that she was awake. 

“Who were you talking about?” He asked. She’d been genuinely terrified, the look of dread on her face had him feeling somewhat anxious himself, as if someone was actually waiting for them outside in the hall. Whatever had happened to her, it must’ve been pretty bad. At first, she didn’t say anything and instead reached down to grab her book. 

“It shouldn’t matter anymore,” she replied. The couch shifted as she stood up, smoothing out the wrinkles in her cardigan before walking towards the shrouded exit. Just as he opened his mouth to say something else, she spoke again. “Because he's dead.” She stilled to say the second part, as if she was afraid the darkness would eat her words if she walked into it. Slowly, she turned back to look at him, “but I still dream about him.” 

With nothing left to say she continued out into the hall and Draco could hear the Twins saying goodbye to her as the doorway closed again. Their soft chatter becoming nothing more than muffled whispers that could only remind him of the quiet voice Vera had used when she warned him. They’d been close, at that moment, both in dreaded nightmares and space between them, which made him burn with embarrassment at his own thoughts. 

When Vera had said she had bad dreams as well his initial thinking was that they couldn’t be anywhere near as bad as his own. That he was the only real one suffering between them, but he’d never cried in his sleep.


	19. The Destroyer

It had been a week since he had seen Vera. Even the occasional glimpses of her cat form in the halls had disappeared, making way for all the renewed questions he had about what could have possibly happened to her. Thinking about that night made him angry as he remembered the frantic horror that had covered her features like a heavy blanket, and how he’d been close to no comfort. She’d done nothing but help him, even when he didn’t know, or was too ungrateful to say anything back in response. Then when she was suffering right in front of him, and terrified enough to not know where she was when she woke, he almost froze completely. He assured her that she was safe, that there was no one else there, but she would’ve figured that out on her own eventually, probably had before. Then, without saying anything to her, he’d let her walk away into the dark halls of the castle. 

Part of him didn’t want to care, a question of whether it really mattered ached within him, because he wasn’t going to be here the next year. After school was over, and his task finished, he’d never have to walk back to the common room or sit in the great hall again, and he never see Vera again. Yet, the other side of him, repeated like an echo in a canyon. The younger student had helped him over and over again, and though she had never asked him for anything, or claimed that she wanted something in return. Draco felt like he owed her something, that she might be waiting for him to appear. At the same time, he knew, that what he really wanted was for that one question to get answered, though he might have to force it. 

Sleep had been somewhat patchy, and when he fell asleep in the secret room without drinking a potion first, the dreams that followed were scattered. One nightmare in particular had Draco reeling from the confusion that came with it. Like most of them it started in the school, but this time Vera was with him, he recognized her terrified expression from the week before. She’d turned to him suddenly and said that someone was here before urging him to run while she bolted ahead with her wand drawn. He’d been watching her hair toss back and forth in front of him when a flash of light hit her in the back and she crumpled to the floor, limp, like a doll. He’d whipped around to see the dark lord grinning at the end of the hall, his wand still raised as if he was to deliver the final blow. 

He woke somewhat shaky from the dream, and couldn’t get the image of Vera falling to the floor from his mind. There was a sort of dread that sank heavy inside of him, an uncomfortable, unfamiliar, feeling that choked him. Remorse had flashed in his mind, for even calling her out to meet in the first place. It also showed him that Vera had probably not been back in the room since that night, as the sleeping dust did little to cover up his dreams. 

Bridget had brought him his batch of potions a few days ago, waiting until his friends had gone to sleep to approach him in the common room. Her opinion of him didn’t appear to be very good judging from the way she looked at him, the cold gaze she leveled him with didn’t require her to speak to know of her disdain. It was the same expression Wyndham offered him whenever they caught gazes during meal breaks or on the way to class. They’d more than likely tried to convince Vera to leave him alone, that involving herself with him was a mistake. Draco couldn’t help but think they were right, especially with the nightmare looming over him. 

Any and all breaks the past couple days had been spent going to all the places Vera had showed him, trying to find her, or some evidence that she had been there recently, but they all looked untouched. The image of her crying stuck in his head and when he thought of her doing it somewhere else in the castle, where he couldn’t make sure to tell her that she was safe, had him somewhat anxious. How long did it usually take her to realize that she was okay? He imagined her waiting, knees pulled tight against her chest, holding her breath and terrified of what might lay waiting in the dark. 

“Is she okay?” Draco asked before Bridget could get away. It was his next batch of potions that brought the frizzy haired girl over to him, the same hateful expression adorning her features. She turned to him slowly, her thin lips twisting into a frown at his question. 

“Do you really care?” She countered making him want to snarl. Would he have said anything if he didn’t? They stared at each other for a few moments, dislike clear on their faces, Vera was one of the few things they had in common. 

“What happened to her?” He pushed, doing his best to loom over the shorter girl as much as he could. Bridget was taller than Vera, but not enough to look him in the eyes. She leaned back and chuckled softly, before a look of disgust crossed her face. 

“You don’t even know?” She seemed to find his question silly, but couldn’t hide the distaste she clearly felt for him. “I guess it wasn’t important enough for someone like you to pay attention to, which is funny, because even some of the first years know.” 

“Tell me,” he growled. His hand moved unconsciously to where he kept his wand and Bridget followed the movement with a sneer. 

“Really?” she muttered. He’d always thought the girl to be somewhat meek, with how she was always off by herself in the common room, or studying during meals, but anger had made her fierce. It was the same level of protectiveness Draco had felt from the Ravenclaw Prefect when he’d brought Vera up all those weeks ago. Whatever it was that happened, must have been pretty bad. “He called himself Abaddon, find out the rest by yourself,” she hissed. In Greek the name translated to. 

“The Destroyer?” Draco muttered confused. 

“Once you know,” her voice was quiet now, losing its fight. “Leave her alone.” 

With that said she turned to leave, and perhaps for the first time in his Hogwarts career, Draco wished the library wasn’t closed for the night. Morning came slow as he tried to convince himself that Vera didn’t matter, that he didn’t need to know what happened to her. His fingers playing with a single vial of the potion as he rolled the conversation with Bridget around in his head over and over again. The name she’d given him was only vaguely familiar from what could have been an old history lesson, but otherwise held no significance. 

In the end, the answer to his long-awaited question was too tempting to leave hanging and he was one of the first students to enter the library the next morning. Instead of fumbling through shelves and papers that he didn’t care about he waited for the librarian, before finding that she wasn’t helpful at all. In fact, she’d told him that he should lower his voice or she would kick him out. It took him most of the morning to find what he was looking for, and he was thankful for the fact that it was Saturday and no one would be expecting him to show up to class. What he ended up with was a handful of newspaper articles and clippings that had been bundled together with a bit of string, and an old book. 

There was Abaddon the Destroyer, the Angel of Death, King of the Locusts from the New Testament, from the book, and Keegeen Conna the muggle murderer, from the newspapers, who used magic to torture his victims and called himself Abaddon. A lot of the information was omitted, probably to spare the gruesome details from students too curious to look away, and Draco glazed over the dark spots until he came across a familiar word. 

Sotelo. Vera’s last name.


	20. The Truth

He felt stupid and anxious, walking down the halls frantically as if the person he was looking for would disappear. Vera wasn’t going to disapparate or vanish if it took him a while to find her, she wasn’t even old enough to sign up for that class, and yet he was almost running. Draco’s mind bristled with anticipation. It all made sense now. All the questions he’d held inside for the younger Ravenclaw student had been answered in one fell swoop as he flipped through pages of old newspapers. It’d taken him a couple hours to locate and read everything, but now it felt as if he was exploding at the seams with information and secrets. He had been so foolish with the girl, so blind.

What he feared would happen to him with the dark lord was death and torture, to be cast out of his family for failure or punished for something that still made his skin crawl to think about. He’d assumed that no one would understand, that nothing could be as bad as what was happening to him and he’d been wrong. 

She’d been taken, kidnapped, and tortured. Ripped away from her family and bled, stitched back together and cut apart, crushed, choked, and almost killed. And he’d sat there in front of her complaining about lack of sleep for something that hadn’t even happened yet. His nightmares seemed so small compared to what she must go through every time she closed her eyes without a potion. It was haunting to think about the previous night now, when she’d hushed him for fear of being found. Was that how it had been like when she was taken? How often did she relive it?

The Newspaper clippings had given him a rough outline of what had happened, since it said that her family had refused to take interviews after finding their daughter. Except for the picture, that was taken the night of her rescue, there was nothing to allude to what had really gone on in that abandoned house. They followed a trail of destruction and found Conna a week later, catching him with the killing curse before they found Vera, bleeding out on the floor. The picture showed her Father rushing in to pick her up, blood staining his clothes as he cradled her in him arms before it repeated. It’d been his fault that she was taken, he had been the one to send the criminal to Azkaban and nearly killed him in a duel. When he’d escaped the news traveled fast, but not enough to save little Vera, who’d been home alone during school break.

Draco felt sick just thinking of the picture again, how she must have screamed and cried while the man laughed. He’d sat there for weeks and months, oblivious to what had happened to her, almost mocking her with his petty nightmares when she’d already lived through the real thing. Everyone protected her because she deserved it, because she was kind and didn’t bother anyone, and she deserved it. What had he done for her?

Nothing.

Instead he’d threatened her, and tried to use her for his own gain. Although, he had felt bad, along the way, but not as much as he did now. The part of himself that usually didn’t care, that pushed everything else away to sneer at the other students or make fun of the underclassmen, was at the very back of his mind. Vera did nothing but help him, and he would at least tell her thank you. Which was pathetic, he knew, but his mind wasn’t quite functioning at the moment.

Thoughts jumped wildly around from old conversations to new information without leaving any room to think about what he was going to say if they came face to face. Her body limp in his dreams like she was in the picture, blood seeping out of her as it had flowed from him in the bathroom. Vera suspended in the air, screaming from the cursed amulet but instead of students around her it was only Conna. The nightmares that plagued her, and when she had become an Animagus to hide.

To hide from the Destroyer if death should ever let him go. His stomach churned and he felt like throwing up. He’d been so foolish, so blind.

Out of breath and feeling somewhat lightheaded he finally spotted her. Sitting on one of the stone benches that overlooked the landscape outside, where they’d sometimes wasted time together. She was in her cat form, so they wouldn’t be able to talk like he had been hoping, but at the same time he was relieved at the discovery. A lazy gaze shifted to him when he sat down, but she made no move to leave so he took it as an invitation to stay. There were a few students walking down the hall, but it was a day to go to Hogsmeade so most of the school had emptied after breakfast leaving them mostly alone.

Now that they were next to each other his mind was empty of everything that had been rattling around inside during his search, all topics he deemed appropriate for conversation had deserted him. He was nervous now, and instead of stuttering out some useless comment he focused on catching his breath.

“I Kno-,” he faltered. What would be best to say? She hadn’t told him about what happened to her, which meant that she was hoping he wouldn’t find out, yet he had anyway. Would she be mad? “I just-,” he stopped again.

She looked at him, without curiosity or apprehension, just stared blandly, as if he wasn’t there at all.

“Thank you,” he finally got out and her eyes lifted to his face. Apparently, it was something she hadn’t been expecting from the older Slytherin boy, or it could have been something else entirely. “For helping me, and,” he hesitated because the words still tasted sour in his mouth. “Sorry, for making it seem like you had to.”

Silence followed them, and Draco couldn’t tell if it was comfortable or not. They stayed quiet for a while, until Wyndham caught sight of them and picked Vera up with an icy glare thrown in his direction. She didn’t fight him, like she had done before when caught outside of the Ravenclaw common room. Though her eyes stayed on Draco until they turned the corner and disappeared from his sight.

That night he was back in the secret room, zoning out until light began to creak upon his face as the painting opened to reveal Vera walking through the door. She didn’t sit down right away, like she had been doing recently, and instead leaned against the wall in front of him. It was the same position she had taken all those nights ago, the first time they’d actually met, face to face.

“He stole a wand from one of the guards and used it to get to my house, where he was hoping my father would be, but I was the only one home. Sometimes the wand would backfire on him, knowing it had been stolen, so I heard him coming and hid, but he found me anyway,” she began. Her gaze on him was void of all emotion, making her look like an empty doll that had seen death one too many times. “I almost died many times and begged him to kill me as well,” she said clearly. It sounded rehearsed and Draco felt a tightness pull at him, it was probably painful for her to recall.

“You don’t have to tell me-,” she cut him off.

“I lost my voice after the first day but it didn’t stop him from trying to bring it out. I have scars,” she pulled up her sleeve to reveal jagged lines, thin and thick, staining her skin. “All over my body from what he did to me. It was the first time I had seen my father cry, he cried a lot because of me. Two months, it took me two months to recover, and every time I fall asleep, he’s waiting for me. Sometimes, when I scream in my nightmares it bleeds out into reality, so I try not to sleep.”

“Vera-,” he said her name softly. A tone he almost never used.

He didn’t know what to say, this wasn’t what he wanted from her anymore. There was a lump in his throat that felt like it was choking him as he realized what she was doing. She must’ve told it many times to people posing as friends who merely wanted the inside scoop of what had really happened to her. How many people had Wyndham threatened? How did he look to her? Had she been hoping he would leave it alone, and go along as they had been?

“Now you know,” she whispered.


	21. Better

Somehow, after everything that had happened, things went back to the way they were before. Draco had been expecting it to be awkward, that Vera might avoid him from then on or cast him out of all her secret places with charms and hexes. She’d left him alone that night, after telling him everything she thought he wanted to know she turned around and left. The darkness had swallowed him quickly, reminding him once again of the charmed lamp that only stayed alight when she was in the room. 

What followed the next night was him talking to the Twins, like he usually did, before entering the room where Vera was already seated. She didn’t acknowledge him, but he noticed the way she tensed when he moved to take his normal spot on the couch, the way her eyes stilled and froze, gazing off into nothing. 

“We don’t have to talk.” Was all he said. He wasn’t sure if they would be the right words, and was on edge himself when he finished, until she relaxed. A soft smile played on her lips for a moment before she turned the page in her book and continued where she’d left off. He almost sighed in relief, and was slightly put off by the worry that had built up within him subconsciously. 

The Mystery was solved, most of his questions had been answered and accounted for and Draco knew. He knew why she was protected by everyone else in her house, why she was always awake and wandering around. There was a reason for her silence and absence in and around the school, and he understood why she behaved the way she did, what might be going on in her head, he knew. There was a bitterness that came with this knowledge, one he hadn’t thought about, or even considered that it might exist and affect him. 

Sympathy. Or perhaps it was pity, as nothing too tragic had really happened to him yet. Vera probably wouldn’t like that he felt that way now. With how hard it had been for her to tell him anything about herself and how little she spoke in general, it would be best not to say anything at all about his realization. 

Draco had been so focused on Vera and finding out about her past that he had almost completely forgotten about what he was supposed to do soon. His other feeble attempts had failed, and all that was left was to use the Vanishing Cabinet, which was working now. He still remembered the bird that had been returned lifeless and limp, the image of it plagued him from time to time. The nightmares that had somewhat subsided in the past few weeks came back with renewed vigor as he dreamed of failure. Vera was in them every once in a while, he’d stumbled across her bleeding form on the floor, as if he had been the one to find her all those years ago. 

He had to remind himself that she had nothing to do with what he was tasked with, she didn’t even know what was going on with him really. There was no reason for her to be in his dreams, or anywhere near him the night it was all going to happen, which was a relief. There was still the question about whether or not he really cared, because he shouldn’t, she wasn’t supposed to mean anything to him, she was nothing. But this felt like he was lying to himself, that she held no place beside him, or even deserved to know his name. 

All year long he’d been following her and she’d been helping him. He looked forward to the time they spent together, the silence that Vera brought to the table was something he never knew he needed. He wasn’t used to quiet company, to being helped just because he was suffering and not needing to give something in return. She had kept him occupied and distracted when he so desperately craved it, and all that he had done in return was make her tell him things she wished to forget. 

It was awful. A terrible feeling, something he’d never imagined would clog his throat in the morning, or flash in his mind when he caught sight of her cat form flit out of sight. An unfamiliar urge sat on his chest, to help her. To, at least, make sure that what was going to happen would not affect her in any way, that she would be safe. If anything happened to her, it would be his fault. 

What he felt for such an emotion was hatred and confusion. He’d never felt this way for his other friends or even some of his family members. Somehow Vera was different, and she shouldn’t be. 

The nightmares got worse as time went on, his task approaching at an alarming rate. He’d started asking the younger Ravenclaw for the potion more often as his mind slowly unraveled and jumped at familiar words or phrases. 

If Vera noticed what was going on, she didn’t say anything, at least until he woke to see her staring at him. It had been another compilation that weighed upon him, as if someone was sitting on his chest. He watched in horror as the dark lord dangled the girl in the air, a grin on his face as she was dropped to the ground, limp and bloody, like she had been in the newspaper clipping. He shouted for her, guilt choking him as Voldemort turned on him next, knocking his wand from his hand before forcing him out a window. Only waking when his body hit the ground. 

“I’ll help you,” she said softly. He looked at her mismatched eyes for hesitation or humor, but there was nothing of the sort. He was breathing slow, trying to calm himself down and think through her little comment, did she know? 

“You can’t,” he responded too quickly. 

“But you’re scared,” she said. It caught him off guard, because he was. Not that he would admit it though, not to her. 

“I’m not.” He growled and she finally looked away from him, back to her book. Draco stilled his anxious expression and looked at Vera with traces of disdain, she would be the last person he went to for help with this. All that awaited him was trouble, which she didn’t deserved. 

“Drac-,” he’d been watching her out of the corner of his eye, and when she opened her mouth to speak again, he cut her off quickly and without emotion. 

“Why are you talking to me like we’re friends?” He snapped. Regret flooded through him immediately, he’d never spoken to her like that, even when he’d been trying to threaten her all those nights ago. 

There was a rapid change then, a sudden shift that he saw within her. She stiffened, her eyes hardening into a vacant stare, the same one she had worn the very first night they met, when he was a stranger. Without another word, or any fleeting expression, she got up and left. He stared at where she had been sitting with a frown until the door finally closed, leaving him alone. 

To his surprise, and anguish, the lamp didn’t turn off. Vera must have charmed it to recognize him during one of the many times he’d fallen asleep in the room. She deserved a better companion than him, someone who didn’t stick their nose in her past, or threaten her, or use her whenever it suited them. 

He threw a couple of the pillows against the wall bitterly, the soft thud of them when they hit the ground did nothing to satisfy his sudden anger. He’d been so stupid.


	22. Strangers Again

The following few days passed around him in a blur. When he wasn’t thinking about his task and what would happen if he failed, he was thinking about Vera and what he’d said to her. He shouldn’t feel bad, didn’t have to, because the relationship that they shared could barely pass as friendship, they hardly even spoke to each other. Yet he felt guilty, so gutted about what he said that it kept him occupied in class, nothing held his attention like thinking about the way the younger girl had stiffened that night. If he had just left her alone after she told him about her past it would’ve been fine, he wouldn’t feel so bad.

It was better this way, certainly it was, because she was safe. He had to keep reminding himself that she was out of harm's way now that their time together was done, not that it mattered anyway. It didn’t. He didn’t care if she got hurt or killed, he shouldn’t anyway. Not when there was less than a week before he was supposed to execute his part of the plan. Six days until he had to make a choice, the only decision that mattered at the moment, and instead he was thinking about a random girl who had been nothing to him less than a year ago.

He might’ve been okay with it, if Vera avoided him like he assumed she would, but she didn’t. She went back to how they had been at the start, complete strangers. It’d been a while since he’d seen her so frequently in cat form, as she always entered the Twin’s room holding a book or some school work. They passed each other in the halls, but she didn’t detour to brush against his legs as she used to, or trill softly to let him know that she had seen him. Her mismatched gaze didn’t even glance in his direction. He was back to sitting in the common room at night, and he had to stop himself from saying anything to her when he noticed her back on top of the bookshelf because Bridget wasn’t there.

There was something about seeing her by herself again that left a bitterness on his tongue. Slowly, she had gotten used to him, sat closer to him on the couch, and next to him in the halls. Her gaze unwavering, she never judged him for who his father was, and eventually she’d relaxed in his presence and given up all her secrets. He couldn’t sleep without her and she asked for nothing in return for any kindness that she offered and he’d snapped at her.

In the span of three days she was on the bookshelf twice, and both times Draco had left to sit in the old classroom instead. Picking through the abandoned textbooks until he found one that still had a mostly attached cover. Vera had mentioned at some point that it was somewhat interesting, and he could almost see her sitting at the desk, flicking through the pages with a bland expression. He couldn’t get past more than ten pages at a time, and now easily understood why the class had been canceled if this was the source material. He was positive the younger girl could tell him all about what was inside the readings or what might have gone on during the lessons, if she had to guess anyway.

Vera was always reading when they were together, or staring off into space if she was in her animal form. Sometimes, he wondered what could possibly be so interesting about different plants or creatures in the forbidden forest, as it was the book she most frequently brought to the secret room. Surely, she’d read it many times by now, and had even offered it to him at one point, after catching him staring at the cover for a few minutes. Perhaps she wanted to memorize all the information and pictures, so she would be able find them in the wild should she ever get a chance to explore the forest on her own.

Although, at the thought, Draco frowned. It wasn’t safe out there, not for a cat, and certainly not for a short girl with only a wand to protect her. Idea’s like these had him going around in circles, on a rampage as his mind raced from what she could be doing to what she ought to be doing instead, and then he got bitter and angry with himself all over again. She didn’t matter anymore, it was over with them, yet she was still popping up in his dreams. One minute he was trying to block out his nightmares and the next saw him walking past the chattering Twins, without a question in his mind at how he’d gotten there.

From how the dim light glowed, Draco knew that she was already in there, although he wasn’t expecting to see her already asleep. Probably dozed off while trying to read, if the book lying open on the floor was anything to go by. She was laying down across the majority of the cushions, apparently not expecting him to show up at all after what happened, since it was her couch, and her room to begin with. Her face looked so relaxed and vulnerable he couldn’t help but stare, especially when her usual expression was hard and guarded all the time. She was taking up most of the couch but there were still a few pillows laying around that he grabbed carefully before settling on the floor in front of the middle cushion. They both got so little sleep it would be mean to wake her.

After that it was quiet except for the slow inhale and exhale of the girl behind him. The room looked different from this angle and made him wonder how the castle must look for Vera when she was in cat form. She was small to begin with, but as an Animagus everything must look huge, with small first years towering over her like giant monsters with sticky, grabby hands. It was nice, to be back to how they used to be, since she was the only person he felt comfortable with anymore. Would she leave when she woke up and saw him? He couldn’t remember if they made up or not, or how he had known she would be in there in the first place. 

“He found me,” her voice whispered into his ear softly. He jumped a little, at the sudden noise, and didn’t turn for a few seconds to hide his embarrassment. Another nightmare, she’d been having them for years, far longer than him, the thought always made him feel guilty.

“You’re safe here,” he sighed.

“Not from him.” She was next to him again, but this time her breath felt cold against his neck and made him shiver. He turned to look at her skeptically, jumping back in surprise at what he saw. It was obvious she had been dead for a while, with how pale her skin was, and the dried blood on her clothes. Lifeless mismatched eyes stared blankly towards the floor, where he had been sitting a few moments ago. Draco started to shake, his breathing erratic as he took small steps backwards before tripping over her discarded book and falling, in what felt like slow motion towards the ground. Horrified, his gaze didn’t leave her form until he hit the floor and woke up.

Gasping loudly and jerking his head off the table, Draco glanced around frantically to see that he was at the supper table. There were only a handful of kids left in the great hall at this point and a couple of them were looking at him strangely. It was nearly time for all students to head towards their dorms and most of them had already done so as the halls were empty. He focused on controlling his breathing while almost running towards the astronomy tower where he could be alone with his awful thoughts.

With a dream like that it was hard to tell what was reality, because it had seemed so real and he’d been relieved to see the girl at first. Was he still dreaming? If he jumped out the window, would he wake up before he hit the ground?

There was already someone at the tower when he finally got to the top. They were sitting down in front of the railing, with their back towards him and feet dangling off the edge into the darkness. He knew immediately that it was Vera by her wild black hair and cardigan, which was one she always seemed to wear after classes.

He was half expecting her to leave when he leaned against the railing a few feet away from her, but she stayed static and unwavering in her forlorn state. Much the same as she had been all those nights ago, when snow was still sticking to the tower like a white blanket. Back then he hadn’t even known her name or that she was actually a human hiding behind that little feline body. She’d been a small friend that kept him company, someone he’d looked forward to seeing around the school. At first for the distraction, and then it’d changed to quiet comfort and relief.

From the corner of his eye he saw her look at him lazily, her eyes shifting back towards the castle grounds as she got up to leave. With the air so heavy around them Draco should’ve been happy that she was going to vacate the area for him, yet he felt guilty instead. For what he said to her the other night, for using her, threatening her, and snapping at her when she didn’t deserve it. He ground his teeth together as she reached the stairs, this could be their last chance to talk, for him to redeem himself.

“Wait-,” he started and stopped just as quickly. Turning away in shame when he saw that her movement stilled. His tongue suddenly twisting up like a writhing snake at how vulnerable and shaken he felt, it was an awful feeling.


	23. Comfortable Silence

“I’m not-,” he cut himself off again with a heavy sigh. A small part of him wanted to just bare all to the younger girl, as she had been the only person to hear him admit what he considered weak. Although, she had been in cat form most of the time, and perhaps that was the reason why he was hesitating at the moment. It was much easier to talk to someone who had no chance of answering back, or pointing out things he wished to keep hidden. 

He didn’t do this. Apologize, or explain himself when he hurt someone’s feelings, which happened a lot. The sniveling first years who shrank away from him in the halls, and flighty second and third years who caught him on a bad morning never lingered in his mind or made him feel guilty about his actions. There were even times when he was somewhat proud of the effect he had on people, the fear and understanding in their eyes because they knew what he was like. 

Vera had been different because she didn’t care at all, he wasn’t even convinced that she knew who he was initially. Her eyes never wavered or flinched away from his gaze, there was no fear or knowledge about who he was in her stare, just curiosity. It vaguely changed from uninterested to nonchalant and finally stopped at calm and comfortable as the days passed by around them in the secret room. The way that mismatched gaze moved his way slowly was almost relaxing, and then he’d messed up and the gaze he’d earned disappeared altogether. 

It would have been easier, if she burned with hatred or avoided him altogether, but instead she looked at him as if he wasn’t even there. 

This was something he wasn’t used to and he wanted her to know, yet couldn’t bring himself to say the words. That he felt awful because she was ignoring him now, and couldn’t stop thinking about how she had walked away from him the other night or her battered body laying lifeless in his dream. The first time she had appeared in one of his nightmares had him scowling bitterly in confusion, because at that point she meant next to nothing to him. Yet, when she was involved now, he shouted after and felt sick to his stomach when danger coursed her way. 

Help was more than likely something he needed, maybe from Snape, or his parents, but not from her. Anyone but her. 

Her eyes were on him, with the indifference he’d grown to hate just recently. Blue and brown gaze looking at him almost disappointed, as if he had all the potential in the world but refused to use it. What it really meant, the story behind it, was of loss instead. Feelings that retreated, like a wave pulling away from a beach. In his hesitation she began down the steps once more which forced from the Slytherin words he loathed to think about. 

“It’s dangerous,” he snapped, voice disappearing into the darkness over the railing. Again, he’d used that tone with her, but this time the anger was directed more at himself than anything. He’d turned away from her sharply, and leaned on the metal bar as if it was a crutch, almost wishing it would give way and let him fall. “And I keep dreaming about death.” 

“Yours?” Came her soft voice. She must’ve turned around to look at his back, else he wouldn’t have been able to hear it past the thrumming of his heart. Somehow, he always seemed to dump everything on the younger Ravenclaw, whether she was in cat form or sitting next to him on the couch. No one else knew about his nightmares, yet she took them in stride, as if they were talking about homework that neither one of them had finished. 

“Not anymore.” It was getting harder to talk as if someone had their hands wrapped around his throat and his tongue stuck like glue to the roof of his mouth. 

His words sank into the darkness around them, adding weight to the already heavy conversation that was beginning to crush Draco. A small part of him hated her in that moment, for making him feel so useless and weak. If she’d never showed up in the common room, he wouldn’t have paid any attention, yet he’d only been able to rest because of her. Perhaps if she wasn’t so mysterious and uncommon, he wouldn’t have wondered after her past for so long, but she’d confided in him and never asked for anything in return. She was too kind, and only offered to help him when she saw that he was suffering, if only she’d never spoken to him at all. 

Never finding out about the human form of Vera would have been for the best, but it was too late to look back on that now. 

“I’m not afraid of death,” she said finally. He almost growled at her, had to stop himself from turning around with a sneer on his face at her words. After all she had been through, it was no wonder she didn’t care, but at the same time he was hoping that she would. That the mention of what could happen would sour her courage and lead her away from danger, but he should’ve known better. 

“But I am,” he said quickly. His tone getting more irritated and anxious as they continued. In the back of his mind a voice was repeating the same thing over and over again, that Vera shouldn’t be here, that he had brought her into this. That she could die. “Of mine,” he hesitated. “Of yours,” his voice tapered off. 

She moved then, the floors creaked slightly behind him and she was once again sitting in front of the railing, her eyes cast out onto the landscape beyond, and suddenly he could breathe again. He was half expecting her to leave, hoping that she would, so he wouldn’t have to worry about her anymore, but at the same time relieved that she went back to how it used to be. Draco thought he was going to feel choked with how pitiful he might sound; how vulnerable his fearful confession would paint him out to be. Imagined that anyone else would sneer at him, or jeer at how he was too ashamed to turn around and face them, but Vera wasn’t like that. 

The quiet settled between them quickly, erasing the seedy weight of nervousness that had plagued him only moments before. This was what he had been missing the past few days, the comfortable quiet that only existed around the younger girl. Soon it would come to an end for good, but it would be easier to leave knowing that it could be picked up no matter where they finally came back together. 

“Is this something you have to do?” She questioned and he was, once again, so thankful for how different the girl was. His other friends kept asking him what was wrong, what he was going through and for him to tell the truth, and it was the same with all the professors as well. Their prodding gaze that tried to rip the facts right out of him, even Snape made him feel like he was out on display to be taken apart. 

Vera didn’t care. She’d never asked him what his nightmares were about, or why he couldn’t sleep. There was no doubt in his mind that she saw the way he struggled to speak about things, or keep up with his mates. Yet she simply stayed beside him, constant, and reassuring that she wasn’t expecting anything from him, and he was sure it would be impossible to find that again. 

“Yes.” 

There was no response to his answer and he didn’t even have to check to know that she hadn’t even glanced in his direction. This was how she always was, indifferent but somehow comforting in her quiet demeanor, they didn’t have to talk, or fill in the silence with music or anything else. He was going to miss it. In front of them, clouds moved to block the moon every so often, casting them into shadow for minutes at a time before Draco finally turned away. 

“Goodnight Draco,” her voice faded off the side of the tower. 

She would sometimes say it when he left the secret room after waking from a short nap, or staring off into space for a few hours, he almost looked forward to its softness in the quiet of night. He’d never before said anything back to her, didn’t want to admit to himself that they could be friends, since it was something people did when they thought of each other as such. But tonight had been different, he felt light after things had worked out for the better. Vera seemed to understand why she couldn’t help him now, or at least she understood that such a thing had nothing to do with her in the first place. This was the first thing he would do for her, to decline her kindness for once. 

“Goodnight Vera.”


	24. Compliments

Sleep did not follow him, and instead left him with each step that he took towards the Slytherin common room. The relief that had initially washed over him when Vera wished him a goodnight was gone, replaced with a torrent of thoughts and emotions that demanded attention in his recently vacated mind. It was easier to think straight without the younger girls mismatched eyes popping up in his thoughts every five minutes. 

He had two nights left in the castle, two days of still being a student and faking worry about how he would fare on his tests or if he did his homework correctly. Then as soon as the third night passed, he’d be gone, whisked away by a world he felt little obligation to and instead had grown to loathe over the course of the year. Thinking about it made him jumpy, and worried about what would happen should he fail. In the beginning he’d been eager to please, to right the wrongs that had been done by his father, ready to prove that his family was still proud and strong. 

Yet the scheming and planning had taken its toll on him more than he’d ever thought possible. Talking was easy. He could talk about wanting someone dead, or how easily it would be to snuff out the life of a person with a simple spell. Doing it was different, and after what happened with Katie and the amulet, he felt sick at the thought of anyone else getting hurt, like Vera. 

The walk back to the common room did well to clear his thoughts and had him adapting a more solemn look to his face. These last couple days could be the final times he walked through these halls, spoke nonsense to the Twins in front of the secret room, or watched ghosts float through the school. It was a sort of melancholy that followed him to his bed, and made him feel as if he was walking through an abandoned house that used to hold a connection to him. 

There was a part of him that was a little sad to be having such thoughts, to know that he could be right, and the other part didn’t care. In fact, he almost felt a little bitter about the gloomy atmosphere that he’d adopted after realizing this. This wasn’t his life. When he was younger Hogwarts had been everything that was important because he had status, people were afraid of what his family could do. It was as if the schoolgrounds were a game that he had cheats to and he was someone with access to a rulebook. Almost able to get away with anything. Getting older had made him realize that it would come to an end at some point, and real life would begin whether or not he was ready to continue on to the next contest. 

School was more like a gate to him now, something that had been closed for a long time, invisible even, to his childish eyes and behavior. This task had thrown it open for him, and he could so easily see what was on the other side that it almost scared him, because he didn’t want it anymore. The sleepless nights, the nightmares about what he had done and what he had to do, and the isolation that he wished didn’t bother him. If that was what life would be like outside, he'd rather not leave, but at this point he had no choice. If he didn’t walk out on his own, they would drag him. Choosing to stay would put everyone in danger, his parents, his friends, and even Vera. 

With those thoughts heavy on his mind Draco quietly got into his bed, staring at the ceiling as his mind raced through what had happened over the course of the year. Things he had done wrong, what he wished he could have done again, and where life would head after this all ended. He didn’t sleep at all. 

By morning he had a few things figured out, even though he was exhausted once again and starting to fantasize about sleeping in until noon. There was a vague plan in his mind for what he was going to do with the time he had left at Hogwarts. His first thought had been to skip the rest of his classes, but he still had to appear as if nothing was going on, and if he ditched, he was sure Potter would jump to criticize him. Although, he had to admit, the thought of classes and homework at this point was nothing but laughable. 

He’d spent some time, in the early hours of morning, chiding himself about Vera. Going back and forth about how making up with her had been a waste and he should’ve just left her as she had been the day before. Instead of telling her that he was scared, that she could die and he didn’t want that. As far as he was concerned, what was for the best anyway, was that the Ravenclaw would disappear from his mind as soon as he left. She didn’t belong in his world, had no place to invade or call her own, and it was the same for her, he didn’t belong. One year didn’t mean much in life, he could barely remember his first year of school. 

It had been the guilt that spurred him to seek her out, as it clogged his throat like a heady syrup, pulling at his tongue until he felt like he might choke on it. Because she hadn’t deserved the anger and fear that laced his words, and he was better now. As if everything that he’d been worried about was resolved. They would have the night in the secret room together later, if she wanted to anyway, and it would be quiet and make him regret ever agreeing to follow through. The next day he would more than likely stew away in the common room, feeling sorry for himself, and then he’d be gone. 

Vera would disappear into the background like a cloud on a gloomy day. 

On the way to breakfast he almost missed the trill of a greeting that was offered up to him in the hall. It was earlier than most people usually got up in the morning, with only a couple other students in the area around them and a sleepy looking professor. He hadn’t been paying much attention to what was going on and only looked down at the small sound of her below him. It was impossible to tell, since she was in her Animagus form, but Draco could guess that she probably hadn’t slept much either. 

Neither one of them stopped to see what the other was doing, or where they were going. That was how their relationship worked. Vera made one more soft noise while brushing against his pant leg before she was past him and going down the hall, her tail twitching back and forth as she padded away. He wanted to follow her for a moment, curious as to where she could be going so early in the morning, but instead stayed on his path to the great hall. 

To his dismay, the day went by quickly. He’d even tried to lengthen it by taking notes in some of his classes, but even that had gone faster than he he’d ever wished it to when he was younger. The few conversations he tried to fit into fell flat as soon as his mates found out he had little to add. Though they did know that something was weighing him down, something he didn’t want to talk about, and didn’t push him to find out what was wrong. 

He skipped dinner. Finding himself walking down the familiar long hallway that used to hold such mystery and anticipation. 

“Should I say it?” He heard the twins attempt at a whisper before he even made it up to them. 

“Don’t,” the other, usually more sensible sister muttered. 

“But it’s a compliment.” 

“In what way?” 

“What is it?” He asked, trying to humor them. Most of the time he hardly got a word in between the two of them bickering at each other. The painting always swung shut to the sound of their rushed voices. 

“No,” one of them bit out 

“You look better when you’re tired.” The other sister groaned at what her twin finally got out. 

“Thanks?” He mumbled as they finally moved out of the way for him to get through. He went inside slowly, catching a little of the continued conversation as he watched the lamp flicker on in response to his presence. 

“You’re so rude.” 

“How is that rude?” 

“You’d be pretty if you weren’t so dumb.” Draco almost laughed at that. 

“You’re so mean to me-” she was cut off by her sister. 

“That’s what you said to him-.” 

“Mine was a compliment.” 

“It was not.” 

Their chatter halted as soon as he started collecting pillows from the floor, the door hidden once more behind the barrier that was their unstoppable talking. How Vera had ever figured out there was a room back here was a mystery, and probably a question he’d never know the answer to. 

Vera came in the same way she always did, not that he had been expecting her to change after their little intermission, but made him wonder what she was like with her other friends for the first time. For some reason he couldn’t see her with a smile on her face, or even what a fit of laughter might look like. He watched her out of the corner of his eye as the twin’s voices once again filled the little passage before fading off. While trying to figure out what book she had brought this time he missed the shortened distance between them until she sat down a little closer to him than usual. 

There was nothing that said whether or not she had realized it was so. Usually she made sure that her arm was against the other side of the couch before settling into her book, but there was no comment or any indication at all. Draco was reminded of how long it took her to sit nearer to him in her cat form, and how it directly correlated with how much they spoke to each other, or how much time was spent together. 

Did this mean that she was finally more comfortable with him, more trusting, right before he was about to leave?


	25. Goodnight/Goodbye

Too quickly, the night went by. He hadn’t even fallen asleep and the minutes flew  away as if they were caught in a storm. Perhaps it was because his mind was racing through everything that was going to change in the next couple days and how different his life would be from what had become normal during the past year. His only solace from these thoughts were the ones about Vera, who sat next to him the same way she always did, but had moved over ever so slightly, to be closer to him. She trusted him now, or cared about him as much as she could bring herself to and with all that had happened, he couldn’t blame her.

Only now did he realize what kind of relationship the two of them had. They were comrades, partners in the battle against nightmares and sleep. It was almost funny how similar they were in certain aspects. Before it had all occurred, he sat in the common room, wanting to be around people that would help to distract him, but not  longing to talk to them in the slightest. Vera had been the same way, achieving what he wanted at a higher level due to her  animagus form. Together, they stayed out of reach and strove to become untouchable without being unwelcome. When it’d become too much he ran away, hoping to find a place that was void of meaningless chatter and out of sight. 

He hadn’t been expecting to find another person doing the same thing, although at the time, she had been a cat. It was something he wasn’t used to, being by himself, wanting to be that way because of what was going on and how it made him feel. Part of him had been prepared and the other part embarrassed that he could no longer handle faking it in front of his friends. Yet he hadn’t been alone for very long before Vera was there to keep him company, even if most of the time she couldn’t even speak to him in words he would understand.

On the other side of this realization he was imagining what Vera might’ve gone through after being kidnapped. He’d never really given it too much thought before, besides a few passing questions about how people treated her differently than they probably had before. With how she had acted after telling him her side of the story, how she had dismissed him, by turning around, because she thought he’d gotten what he wanted. She didn’t appear to have many friends and he’d only ever seen her hang out with Bridget while in her smaller form.

Did she think of him as a friend? He hoped that she didn’t because she deserved someone better than him, a person that wasn’t selfish and inconsiderate like he was. 

Usually, Draco left before Vera was done reading. He’d wake up feeling slightly refreshed and comfortable in the silence of the room around them, drag himself onto unstable, half asleep feet and leave with a mumbled goodbye. The smaller Ravenclaw would respond in kind, and he’d occasionally glance back just as the painting was closing to see her staring at nothing, her mind far away from school. Leaving him curious as to what she could possibly be thinking about, and feeling the smallest bit of guilt at using her quiet company as he pleased.

This time he waited for her to leave first, which took longer than he thought it was going to. He did sometimes wonder how many hours she sat in the room by herself, if light was beginning to show the next day when she finally made it back to her room. Somehow, he had thought his presence took up more of her time, that their time spent away from others was in equal parts, but such wasn’t the case.

In this strange world of sleeplessness and nightmares Vera was stuck forever wandering the streets, looking longingly down the road while dreaming about escape. For a while he had also stayed there, and they often crossed paths in order to share their woes and do their best to survive together, but they were still so very different. Draco could leave, he was going to, and even felt excited for it. She would more than likely wish him luck and turn around to go back.

Again, he felt guilty. Just imagining Vera sitting in the secret room, laying on top of the bookshelf, or wandering the castle halls alone had him feeling bitter.

“Goodnight Draco,” she whispered. Her soft voice startled him out of his thoughts with just enough time to reply before the painting closed.

“Goodnight Vera.” He rushed out, and the guilt was replaced by immense relief. 

There was no goodbye, or warning that he would be leaving the next night and that she might want to hide. She was gone, and he would never have to see her again. Although he was sure that her mismatched eyes would pop up in his dreams for a while afterwards, he wouldn’t have to see her in the halls anymore. No more brushing off her loose cat hair from his pants legs, or sitting comfortably in a room where nothing was expected of him.

That was how it should’ve been anyway. The following day saw him in the common room in the evening for a couple hours before he was expected to perform as he said he was going to. It was quiet and he had been absorbing the soft chatter and murmur of other students as much as he could, although his legs had started to quiver in anticipation. A small shake had started in his hands when he tried to hold them still in front of his eyes, and he felt sick, as if he was going for a long dive in a quidditch game.

In his exhausted fitfulness, Draco dozed off for a couple minutes, jerking awake when his head began to slip, he almost jumped at the sudden presence next to him. For the first time since they had started talking to each other, Vera was sitting right beside him in her cat form. Right against his leg, as if she belonged there and it wasn’t the first time it had occurred. A growled curse almost escaped him as he turned away from the grey feline, who had trilled up at him as if nothing was the matter at all.

Glancing around the room told him that Bridget was there, and surprised at seeing the two of them together, if the slightly wide-eyed stare was anything to go by. When the other girl saw that he was also looking her way her features stiffened into a suspicious glare, as if blaming him for what had happened. She probably didn’t trust him with her friend, and he couldn’t really blame her, as he’d never done much good for the younger Ravenclaw student. Yet here she was, picking to be with him instead of the person she had initially sneaked into the common room for. If it had happened a month ago, even a week ago, he would’ve felt good about it, been somewhat flattered at how she finally saw him as a friend. It made him wish he didn’t have to leave, that he had never been tasked with such a thing at all, but that was a foolish thought as well.

They sat together in silence, and he did his best to ignore her for an hour before he stood up suddenly. At this point he was sure that she had noticed the way he’d started to fidget again, worrying his bottom lip with his teeth until  it was battered and sore. He’d decided that his last hours at the school would be spent in the old abandoned classroom, away from mostly uninterested eyes and curious mismatche d ones.

“I-I,” he hesitated after glancing down at the  animagus below him. Instead of speaking, which felt impossible with how heavy his tongue now seemed, he turned to leave and almost cursed for real when tiny furred legs moved to follow. With a heavy sigh he stopped and looked back at Vera with a stern expression, she  then  paused in her pursuit and offered him a calm stare. “Don’t follow me.”

With that said he expected her to stay, but she began to pad after him again, with what looked like a defiant expression on her tiny face. He recognized it from all the times she’d jumped away from the first years, out of their reach and indifferent to what they wanted. A sudden rush of worry washed over him, she had to know that something was going to happen. Vera was smart and easily picked up on the smallest of clues when it came to body language and behavior. She might not know what it was that was going on, just that it was big enough to make him tremble anxiously. Even though he had warned her what could happen, about what he had dreamed, she seemed intent on trying to involve herself, and he couldn’t have that.

It was the second time he had rushed to pick her up, and although she didn’t struggle this time, it felt just as awkward as it had before. A quick walk across the room brought them in front of Bridget, who moved back a little at the sudden appearance of Draco Malfoy in front of her. Her gaze flicking between the disheveled looking upper classmen and her friend who was disguised as a cat currently dangling in his hands.

“Take her,” he said pushing the feline towards her friend. Bridget grabbed Vera slowly, as if there was a bomb attached to her fur somewhere, or if it was somehow a trap. “Don’t let her leave.” It came out in a growl, as he looked as much at the younger Slytherin as he did at the Ravenclaw. A warning and a threat rolled into one, he had to trust someone he didn’t know and hope they would understand the urgency in his tone.

The friend seemed to get it, or at least decided to follow his direction for the moment, as her grip on the grey feline tightened. Vera made no move to squirm or fight, simply looked after Draco lazily, the same way she observed the creatures in the lake. That was where she belonged, with her friend, and far away from him. He was sure her mismatched gaze followed him until the door to the Common room finally closed them off from one another.


	26. The Walls Crumbled

Behind his eyes, whenever he blinked, Draco saw his friend falling into the flames. Replaying like a moving picture, an image he was sure would be burned into his eyes forever as a testament to how worthless he truly was. Being saved by the enemy was a harsh enough blow as it was, but if he couldn’t even protect the people he’d dragged along with him, what good was he? 

The castle started to fall apart around him as he ran down partly ruined corridors and halls, dodging students who were crying and shaking on the floors and cowering against the walls. A part of him felt guilty for running by when the faces were familiar to him and the terror matched closely to his own. Being back after so long felt strange and brought memories of what he had left behind, a cat and small Ravenclaw, friends, a feeling of comfort. 

He’d been hoping beyond hope that Vera wouldn’t turn up as spells and bodies flew past him, muttering threats under his breath should the girl appear. Draco wanted to hide, to avoid the battle and flee like most of the other Slytherins, but as soon as he got to the ruined staircase his thoughts and blood ran cold. 

Two flights down he saw a familiar, messy head of hair, sprint directly past his line of sight as he stumbled down the stairs in shock and disbelief, hand gripped tight onto his borrowed wand. She turned just before disappearing around a corner, to make sure no one was behind her, and he swore in frustration at the familiar face. Earlier, when passing thoughts came of the girl, he told himself that he’d leave her there, to fight a battle that was far too big for her. Go against those she would more than likely lose her life to. It would be easy to turn his back on her, surely, after this battle, no matter who won, they would never see each other again. Especially if she died. 

Yet those words had crashed into him like a brick wall. He wanted her to make it, to one day be able to sleep without nightmares and be happy. She deserved to be happy. 

Without any further thought he ran after her, jumping over rocks and throwing spells at any adult who got close to him, hoping that each corner turned would bring her to him. He refused to look at the bodies on the ground, and ignored the screams and yells as much as possible. In his head the same mantra repeated, over and over again, that he would find Vera trying to protect someone, that she would be okay, and he would yell at her. How could she be so stubborn? How could she, someone so small, put herself against adults and monsters? 

The entire left side of the next hallway was gone, pieces of the half-collapsed roof littered the ground and Draco nearly tripped over a limp leg that was stretched out across the floor. It made him shudder and he barely resisted the urge to look down at who it belonged to before there was a shout in front of him and the sound of a window shattering. If he remembered the castle correctly the next part of the hallway was a dead end that held two classrooms. Which meant that, if he had been following Vera the whole time, she would more than likely be there, panting from the jog and adrenaline of a fight. He didn’t even let himself think about how it could’ve been her thrown through the glass. Part of him was afraid that if he stopped to consider everything, he’d realize what a mistake he was making by chasing the younger girl. 

The broken window was what he looked at first before a muffled sob jerked him around to look in the other direction, where he was able to recognize the frizzy hair of a younger Slytherin girl. Half of the wall was gone, revealing a ruined classroom with stools and tables scattered throughout the rubble. Bridget was huddled over something, someone, and trying her best not to cry out too loudly when Draco was suddenly upon them. His old housemate didn’t spare him a second, her eyes trained on the smaller body beneath them, crumpled and injured against the large stones. 

“She was looking for me,” her voice shook. 

Vera was unconscious, with a gash just above her eyebrow that bled freely down the side of her face, the dark liquid made him remember flashes of dreams he’d locked up. It’d happened regardless of how he’d pushed her away. 

“I Shouldn’t have tried to hide,” she continued as his mind raced. If he’d been just a little bit faster, hadn’t thought about it so much, or called out her name, he’d be talking to her right now. Instead she laid lifeless between them, blood oozing from her head. “The spells clashed; he went out the window and she,” Bridget faltered. “Smashed her head.” 

From her few words he could see it playing out, Vera coming upon the scene and jumping immediately in to save her friend, the strain on her face as the attacks collided, and how weightless she must have looked before crashing. His knowledge of healing charms was minimal, but he put his concentration into the ones he did know, hoping that one of them would help her at least a little. The bleeding stopped, but she didn’t wake, what they needed was a professor or one of the other, older adults. 

“Do you have your wand?” He questioned and she shook her head, instead lifting the familiar one of the girl below them. 

“I have Veras.” 

“Protect us,” was all he could muster. He wasn’t good at this, and there was still a loud voice screaming in his head to run and leave them behind, but he couldn’t. She deserved so much more from him; this was the least he could do. Carefully, he picked her up, one hand under her knees and the other at her back, a tight grip that had her cheek against his chest. On the back of her head was a cut from hitting the rocks, although the bleeding had ceased there was a lot of it in her hair that got on his clothes. He was expecting her to be heavier and she was so small it felt like he was carrying a child. 

What happened after they started running back down the same hall turned into a blur, and though he tried, Draco couldn’t pick out a single solid memory of the spells that were cast or parts of the castle they ran through. Aware only of their panting breath and jerky movements as they hid around corners and ducked behind rubble. 

Vera’s wand didn’t seem to like Bridget using it very much, but performed when needed much like its owner. At one point a failed charm pushed them back against the wall and he almost lost his hold on the Ravenclaw, but held fast as Bridget reacted quickly. Near the end his arms began to shake and ache at the cramped hold of her against him, her body weighing him down as exhaustion set into his movements. 

It was when the fighting began to peter out that they found where all the wounded were being brought, and he did his best to look away from the beds covered completely with blankets, of those who hadn’t made it. The other girl rushed ahead of them, finding an open space for him to lay her down before running to grab someone who would be able to help them. He put her on the ground slowly, carefully placing her head down to make sure it wouldn’t be pained any further. 

After looking down at her for a few more moments Draco lost his nerve and turned to leave. Failing to find a reason for him to be there when she woke up, what would they say to each other? That they were even now, or would she ask why he hadn’t just left her there? He could imagine himself stumbling over his words like a shy first year being scolded, not the mention the awkwardness that would come with staying at Bridget’s side. 

He’d accomplished more than he thought himself capable of doing and it was time to leave before he could regret it. There was a chance she could still die, that he’d merely prolonged her life for an hour longer than it might've been had he left her there. Yet, as he thought about it now, many things would’ve stopped him from doing so. If the roles had been reversed, Vera wouldn’t leave room for a question or time to decide what was best for her. She’d drag him if she had to. 

With one last glance down at the smaller Ravenclaw he moved away, back towards the ruined hallways and rooms that had once been a kind of home for him. Bridget did not see him go, and even as he passed some familiar faces, nothing was said to him. 

As they were leaving his parents questioned the blood on his clothes, demanding to know who had hurt him and how bad the injury was. He assured them through tight lips that it wasn’t his before remembering the weight of Vera in his arms as they sprinted around the ruined school, fearing for their lives. He felt better about leaving her this time, even though they hadn’t spoken or even exchanged looks, he had finally done something for her, the same way she had done for him all those days ago. Without knowledge, without asking, and without expecting anything in return. 

She was on his mind for a little while after that, while the relief at finally being finished with everything settled into his mind and body like a tub slowly filling with water. For the first time in a long time, Draco slept through the night, and woke in the morning refreshed.


	27. Epilogue

From inside the train his son waved at him, catching his attention for a moment and stealing it towards the platform entrance where first years were having heartfelt moments with their parents. When the hand disappeared from sight he turned to look away and barely caught sight of the wild, curly black hair in front of him. In the few seconds before he was able to see her eyes Draco recalled what had happened between them all those years ago, so long it had been that it felt more like a dreamscape than reality. 

He remembered the weight of her in his arms and how the castle had fallen apart around them as they ducked and ran around looking for a safe place to hide. The nervousness he felt came back to him in a sudden rush as he looked at her, for so long he hadn’t even been sure if she was dead or alive as the time after the battle was such a mess. Then, when he had found out that she made it there was still the question of whether or not she was okay, or if the new experience had worn her down even more. Her appearance before him answered that question well enough, if she had given up, or been broken, she wouldn’t be standing there. 

There was a boy next to her, so much taller than her that she looked like a child. He couldn’t be any older than twenty and had probably just finished his time at Hogwarts a year or two before. Pale blue-green eyes popped out in contrast against his brown skin that was several shades darker than the short woman next to him. Where her skin had always seemed golden in the light his was the opposite, covered by smart clothing and carrying himself with strong posture he looked fairly intimidating. It was the kind expression he offered to the other boy that softened him up. 

The youngest of the bunch had pale skin, and brown hair, so different from the other two it would be hard to recognize them all as a family from appearance alone. Judging from his luggage, and how overpacked it looked, Draco could tell it was his first year at the prestigious school, and by the way he was shaking. They were talking to each other quietly, but it was obvious by their actions and appearance that they cared deeply for each other. 

She looked up at him the same time he finally turned his attention back to her, brown and blue gaze stared at him in the same way it had in the past, as if he wasn’t there at all. There was a small flash of recognition that blazed across her gaze for a moment before her expression changed completely and she smiled at him. The simple quirk of her lips made him freeze as he wracked his brain for a memory of her doing so in the past. Time had changed her, and the once constant vacant gaze had been replaced by a softer one, still somewhat sad and forlorn looking, but much more approachable than before. 

It took him back to when she would walk into the doorway of the secret room and a small wave of relief washed over him, as if he’d been holding his breath in anticipation. Vera was certainly different now, had to be, with all the years that had passed between them and around them, yet that feeling of comfort still remained. For a moment she turned back to the boys next to her and Draco had a familiar urge within him to turn away and escape, to spare her his company. A small part of him was afraid that he had changed too much for her to even talk to. 

Back then, when he’d tried to threaten her, he’d been so immature and ignorant, but things had changed. He’d had a wife and still had a child, been through many deaths and failures that had shaped him as a person and a wizard. When he thought back to the last day that he saw Vera, he wished he had stayed until she woke up, knowing now that she had deserved that. To be reminded that she was important, that what she did was stupid, and yet so very brave. 

Ignoring the very soft and small voice that was telling Draco to turn away, the old Slytherin watched as the much shorter Ravenclaw turned to him once again, with nothing but a smile on her face. Mismatched eyes holding his stare, much like it had done all those years ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who made it this far, to the end, and even to those who may have stopped by for only a few chapters. I'm happy this little idea I had turned out to be more than I ever thought it was going to be. This story was fun to write, just as much as it made me sad or anxious. I quite like how it ended, very simple, much like the beginning.
> 
> I do have a small thought towards what could be a short sequel, but that's up to you. If you think this ended well, I don't want to write something that could jeopardize that. I would love to hear back from any of you, and thank you to those who already commented, I was always excited to read them.


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